


A Merry Johnlock Christmas

by alexabarton



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Butt Plugs, Childhood Friends, Consensual Underage Sex, Drug Use, Drunk Sherlock, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Guardian Angels, Hand Jobs, Historical Inaccuracy, Intergluteal Sex, Johnlock Roulette, M/M, Magical Realism, Penis Size, Porn With Feels, Potterlock, Red Pants, Santa Kink, Teenlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 17:35:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 61,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2701469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexabarton/pseuds/alexabarton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A selection box of seasonal Johnlock ficlets..... both naughty and nice!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Holmes for the Holidays

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter One - Mummy makes Sherlock share his room for the holidays....with some stupid boy called John
> 
> I don't know what came over me...here's a little slice of tooth-rotting fluff (with a little smidge of smut because I just can't help myself)

Sherlock was annoyed to say the least, and fact utter cold fury would be a better description entirely, he thought. Mummy had just informed him in no uncertain terms that he was to share his overly large bedroom with one of their Christmas guests , the grandchild of their housekeeper, Eleanor, in other words, some idiot boy, no less.

They were to host a large Christmas ‘do’ for family and friends and Sherlock simply wasn’t In the mood, so he made his feelings known by conducting the most obnoxious experiments in his ever growing repertoire, until he had filled the entire house with a suitably disagreeable scent.

Mummy just sighed and opened all the windows “Oh dear Sherlock, those eggs we bought at the market yesterday must have gone off somehow, I must tell cook to get some more”

Damn it, he should have known by now that she was annoyingly impervious to all of his devious tricks.

Mycroft snickered to himself in his bathrobe as he sat by the fire, all pink and fresh from the shower.

“How painfully obvious Sherlock…better luck next time”

“Oh fuck off Mycroft…and you might want to close your legs…I can see entirely the wrong sort of Santa’s sack from here”

Mycroft scowled at him so he flipped him the bird, and stuck his tongue out for good measure too.

The stupid annoying git looked even more ridiculous than usual as he attempted (and failed) to look cool, smoking one of father’s Cuban cigars. He was irritatingly smug in the knowledge that he would not be the one forced to let a perfect stranger sleep in his bed,( not that anyone would want to anyway)

All that unnecessary touching…ugh…Sherlock shivered at the mere thought, and wondered how the hell he was going to avoid it.

“Oh, but Sherlock darling, it will be such fun” Mummy tried again. She loved Christmas so much and could never understand his aversion to garish decorations, the dreaded tinsel and the cloying stench of cloves and pine. And the Christmas jumpers…Holy shit! They were enough to give any sane person hideous nightmares with grinning ghoulish Santa’s and comedy reindeers complete with the obligatory ‘fuzzy’ red nose.

Sherlock would wear his Paul Smith suit, and the rest of them could go and fuck themselves.

“But just think of all the pillow fights and midnight feasts you could have”

Jesus Christ how old did she bloody well think he was…five?

It was no use even trying to explain, because to Mummy he would always be a child, her sweet little angel boy.

Sherlock smiled to himself, knowing nothing could be further from the truth. He would make this boy beg for mercy, or at the least get him out of his room.

It was Christmas Eve and Sherlock hung out of his bedroom window blowing smoke rings up into the sky. All protests regarding his room had fallen on deaf ears and Mummy was simply cross with him now.

‘Make friends Sherlock, god knows you could do with a few, or even just the one, if you want me to be brutally honest dear’.

What the hell did she know anyway? All the boys at school wanted to do was get pissed and smoke weed every weekend, sneaking girls back to their rooms for quite frankly embarrassing attempts at adolescent sex. He had timed them a few times, and really, even he knew it wasn’t supposed to be over that quick.

There was a flurry of activity at the front of the house, the guests arriving to make his life a misery for the next few days, he supposed. The oak tree outside his bedroom afforded a much better view, so he stubbed out his cigarette and climbed into the branches to get a closer look.

It was natural curiosity, Sherlock told himself, as he wasn’t in the slightest bit interested in the boy who would be sharing his room.

Not at all.

“His name is John”, Mummy had told him, “John Watson… he’s sixteen, one year older than you”.

What a spectacularly dull name, Sherlock thought.

If it wasn’t so bloody cold he could have slept out here, in his treehouse, he thought, as he had often done in the past, snuggled up in a blanket fort, where he wouldn’t be bothered by boring John at all.

“Hi there, you must be Sherlock…do you mind if I come up?”

A sandy blond head peered quizzically at him from the foot of the oak, one hand shielding his eyes from the glare of the winter sun. Sherlock gaped, open- mouthed, completely derailed from his current train of thought as the most beautiful creature he had ever seen smiled up at him from the ground.

(He must be ill, he decided, as his heart started to pound, or possibly an attack of vertigo, he hadn’t climbed a tree for quite some time after all…)

Without waiting for an answer the boy swung himself up onto the lowest branch, climbing with a practised ease. And Sherlock most certainly did not notice, the flex of muscles in his gorgeously defined arms, or the little huffs and grunts he made, or the way the exertion had made him start to pant…

His cheeks felt hot and flushed.

(Maybe he should take his temperature….there were an awful lot of bugs going around...)

“Permission to come aboard Captain” John called out with a grin as he reached the top, his fingers gripping the sides of the low wooden hut.

Sherlock swallowed around the lump in his throat.

“Permission granted” he squeaked, with a noise that was nothing at all like his usual voice.

John didn’t seem to notice though, unless he was just being polite.

“Wow, an actual tree-house…you’re so bloody lucky…” John said, as he pulled himself up, “if it was mine I would sleep out here all the time, even in Winter, with tons of blankets and stuff, and you could stash loads of food and supplies….and fuck me…that view…I bet on a clear day you can see for miles”

Sherlock could only stare as words failed him for once. John Watson was the opposite of dull and the prospect of sharing his room didn’t seem to be quite so horrifying after all. John flashed him a dazzling smile which released a swarm of butterflies in his stomach and chest.

Just what the hell was wrong with him today? He was seriously losing his touch. John should at least have displayed some desire to punch him in the face for making a variety of derogatory comments by now.

He tried to think of something suitably scathing to say but all that came out was “Erm yeah…It’s really nice (Nice? For fuck’s sake)

John just smiled at him again, and Sherlock couldn’t help noticing the cute little crinkles around his eyes.

"Sorry about hijacking your room and all that…it’s a bit shit, I know …but I promise not to snore too much or hog the blankets and stuff…and I won’t eat any food that might make me fart, so I guess that means the Brussel sprouts off limits for once”

Sherlock snorted through his nose and desperately tried to turn it into a cough.

“Not at all…I don’t mind…it’s all fine” he managed to stutter out. Damn, how could he be expected to concentrate when John looked at him like that with those amazing blue eyes…and besides, when they were snuggled up in bed tonight, he was pretty sure that John would smell divine. (Oh god, where had that thought come from?..... surreptitiously sniffing his guest had definitely not been part of the plan).

For fuck’s sake act normal Sherlock, or it will be an inappropriate hard-on next.

“You’ll be quite bored I imagine, miles from the civilised world…by which I mean London of course. We have a house there too, but Mummy always insists we spend Christmas here…I can’t imagine why”

“Oh, I don’t mind, I’ve been seeing a girl from the village for a few weeks now, in fact, I have a date tonight. Gran doesn’t know though, so it’s a secret, and I’ll have to sneak out…. this tree is fucking excellent, no-one will even know I’ve gone”

“Oh” Sherlock made a valiant attempt to hide the disappointment in his voice. He could almost hear Mycroft’s derisive snort ( ‘oh dear, brother mine, did you actually imagine that such a boy would be interested in you’)

“Hey, watch this” John turned to look at the assortment of relatives milling around, getting out of taxi’s and cars while mummy and Mycroft scuttled about helping the staff take the suitcases and bags inside. He drew out a small scrap of paper and the shell of a pen, chewing thoughtfully until he had fashioned a small sticky pellet. His aim was deadly accurate as he huffed a sharp breath out, smacking Mycroft squarely on the back of the neck.

He flapped around as if he had been stung before turning to look up at them, pure venom shining in his eyes.

“Shit…busted” John laughed, but Sherlock could see that he just didn’t care

“You spit-balled my brother, any particular reason why?”

“My gran said he’s an arrogant twat who acts like he’s master of the house even though he’s only twenty-five…oh, and that he treats his little brother like shit and that’s never okay, because, gran says, family is all you have in the end….you’re her favourite by the way, I forgot to tell you that”

Sherlock could feel himself blush as John’s searched his face. Why the hell was he staring at his mouth like that?, and licking over his bottom lip with just the barest hint of pink tongue? The mere sight of it made Sherlock want to do all manner of unspeakably disgusting things.

“I’m cold, I think we should go inside” Sherlock had to turn away before he revealed more than he wished to make known.

John snuck out around nine, after supper when the adults were safely ensconced in the drawing room with a platter of cheese and wine. Sherlock watched him disappear from view and tried desperately not to think of John with his hands and mouth all over some god-awful village girl.

Mycroft, as was to be expected, was highly amused, taking in Sherlock’s discomfort with his customary penetrating glare.

“Ask Mummy for a sprig of mistletoe Sherlock, and when he comes back from his midnight tryst you might catch him unawares”

“I don’t want to kiss him Mycroft”

“But you see brother dear…. from the way you’ve been devouring the poor boy with your eyes….I rather think you do”

It would never happen though, no matter how badly he wanted it too (fuck it…Mycroft was right)

He would just have to suffer in silence or perhaps have a tactical wank before John climbed back through his bloody window.

It was very late, around one, when he heard the rustle of branches and the faint creak of the sash as it was pushed further up. John tumbled off the sill with a muffled curse, wedged between the bed and the window in the dark.

Sherlock lay completely still, hardly daring to breathe with the covers pulled up to his chin as John decided to clamber over him, rather than walk around to the other side. His foot got caught under one of Sherlock’s bony knees, and he sprawled across him gasping

“Fuck…I’m sorry Sherlock…did I wake you up?”

“What do you think genius” he snarked, as the sickly whiff of Chanel perfume hung heavy in the air.

Mildly inebriated, John decided to forgo pyjama’s, stripping down to his pants and climbing under the covers, completely unabashed.

Sherlock didn’t know how he would be able to ignore it, as he caught a quick glimpse of something red and rather tight.

“Well…how did the date go”, oh god as if this wasn’t awkward enough he was now painfully aware of the close proximity of a very cold and half- naked John.

“Bit shit really… apparently, girls don’t seem to like it too much when you spend the whole time talking about someone else”

“Ah…I see” (well, he didn’t see actually, but he wasn’t about to let John know that, the whole ‘girl’ thing not really being his area, so to speak…)But it hadn’t gone well, he assumed. He couldn’t help feeling just a little bit smug.

“Yeah…well…look Sherlock…you don’t have to…say no if you want, but….can I kiss you? You see, I’ve just spent the entire night thinking about your mouth…”

Oh god. He was so glad that John wouldn’t be able to see his cheeks blazing crimson in the dark.

“Yes...you can …I’d like that”

John leaned forward placing his hands on Sherlock’s shoulders and he instinctively flinched away at the touch.

“Sorry…you’re just freezing cold” he was relieved to hear John laugh.

“Well maybe this will warm us both up a bit…Merry Christmas Sherlock”

The soft brush of lips felt like heaven as John closed the remaining gap and pressed his body flush against him too. Sherlock gasped, fucking hell, he could feel every inch of what was hidden inside those red pants.

John cupped his face and turned Sherlock’s head to get the angle just right, swirling that hot, delicious tongue around his lips and mouth. He felt delirious, this couldn’t be real, no-one had ever wanted to kiss him this way, but yet here he was, Sherlock the freak with no friends, being thoroughly snogged by the most gorgeous boy he had ever seen, and even better than that, it was more than apparent that John Watson was thoroughly turned-on by him.

He didn’t mean it to happen, but he just couldn’t resist. Sherlock ground his hips forward a little and was rewarded by a shock of pure sensation, like an electric current coursing through his veins. John grabbed his arse then, and pulled him in harder still, rubbing and rutting against him until they were both desperate and gasping for breath.

“Keep going…don’t stop” he encouraged in Sherlock’s ear, but he was too far gone anyway, utterly lost, this felt nothing like jerking yourself, rubbing up against someone else’s cock. He finally understood what all the fuss was about, but even with the best of intentions, he wasn’t going to last, and then John shoved his hand down Sherlock’s pyjama pants and he saw stars, hot ribbons of come pulsing out all over John’s hand.

John didn’t seem to mind though, just told Sherlock how gorgeous he was, as he took his own prick in hand. He pushed Sherlock back on the bed and straddled him, moaning his name, minutes later, as he came all over Sherlock’s chest.

Oh my god, they had just had sex.

In his bed.

At Christmas.

“That was definitely unexpected…but amazing…Christ Sherlock”

“I know….I still can’t feel my legs….. you really shouldn’t go around wearing such tiny red pants”

“They worked though didn’t they? John pulled them back up, snug against his arse, before he wiped Sherlock down with a t-shirt he grabbed from the floor. A bed creaked loudly in the room next door and someone gave a very disgruntled cough.

(Shit…had they just made too much noise?)

“Uncle Nigel couldn’t make it”, Sherlock said with a smirk, “so there’s a room free, if you should want it…further down the hall….”

“Fuck that… your mother was a genius for making you share…..but don’t pretend that you didn’t make plans to chuck me out”

“Well I think after that spectacular orgasm I can suffer your presence for another day or so”

“And after that Sherlock?”

“Who knows?”


	2. The Office Christmas Party - Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John challenges Sherlock to a sword fight, of a very inappropriate sort.

“Do please enlighten me John, as to why the hell we are here” Sherlock hissed through his teeth as he glanced around, a look of abject horror on his face.

New Scotland Yard had been transformed into a veritable ‘Winter Wonderland’ of inebriated elves in microscopic skirts, with DCI Gregson as an extremely pervy and sinister looking Santa Claus. He could sense a sexual harassment charge on the horizon, if that hand up Donovan’s dress was anything to go by, and it wasn’t even ten o’ clock.

“Behave Sherlock” John whispered back “we promised, remember?...oh sorry , silly me, what was I thinking of? Of course you bloody well don’t……’filtered’ again I suppose?”

If John was waiting for the dawning light of realisation to shine in his eyes then he would be standing there for a bloody long time.

It took exactly fifteen seconds before he cracked.

Sherlock had counted under his breath.

(Well, he had to have some way to amuse himself).

“Greg asked us to come…pleaded more like it poor bloke”

Sherlock looked blankly back, not because he didn’t know, it was just fun to wind John up from time to time.

“For fuck’s sake Sherlock, Lestrade’s name is Greg….how many times?....Oh bloody forget…just come on”

John grabbed at the sleeve of his Belstaff coat and dragged him bodily through the crowd. It was much too warm to wear it indoors and a sheen of sweat had already broken out across his forehead, but considering the nauseating collection of ‘style’ on parade tonight, he thought he had made a very wise choice.

Whatever possessed grown women to sprout sequins everywhere at this time of year? Sherlock thought, as he took in the quite frankly, disturbing sights. And think it appropriate to assault the senses with liberal amounts of some cheap, cloying perfume and expose acres of their pasty, wobbling flesh?

Even Mrs Hudson had succumbed, albeit to a lesser degree in a ‘comedy ‘ jumper with LED lights and a musical Christmas tree.

Oh god, he needed some alcohol or he would never be able to cope with this, he could already feel a vitriolic rampage of epic proportions on the horizon , and he had faithfully promised John that he would behave himself this year.

“It’s either this, or drinks at the Diogenes Club with Mycroft genius….so bloody well take your pick”

So here they both were after that impossible choice, literally caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Oh god, he was even spouting cliché in his own damn head.

“Here, get this down your neck mate” John pressed a bottle of some noxious blue liquid into his unresisting hand “and I’m warning you this time Sherlock, don’t you dare calculate my level of drunkenness according to how many times I need to go and take a piss” (as if he would!)

Ah, the infamous stag night, their last big hurrah, when he had puked all over a crime scene and spent a less than comfortable night in a cell (at least they were close at hand here tonight, should anything go wrong, and with their track record, he couldn’t exactly rule it out)

Not exactly his finest hour.

He seemed to recall being bottom-up and face-down at some point, snoring like a pig in the middle of a very interesting job. That was before the charge of drunk and disorderly, and a hangover so bad he thought his entire body was going to fall out through his arse.

Never again.

If John wished to believe that they were here for the sake of Lestrade, then who was he to point of that they were actually here for a less than noble cause? John would be going back home to Mary in a couple of weeks, it was for the best, they all had agreed, so tonight was his last reckless night of drunken revelry before impending fatherhood turned on the brakes.

The wound in his heart gave a stab, just to rub the whole damn mess in his face.

His bottle was empty so he picked up another, orange this time. It was cold, and that was enough for now.

“Here, try the red one this time” John appeared at his elbow again, cheeks flushed from the heat , “s’cherry I think” he took the second empty bottle from his hand (when did he drink all that?) and pressed another in its place.

Sherlock took a long refreshing pull (it really was bloody hot in here) and drained half a bottle in one go “It tastes exactly the same as all the rest John…a token dash of alcohol and chemically sweetened horse piss”

“Mary likes it” John pouted defiantly , even though there was an unspoken agreement not to talk about her tonight. The mere thought of her already poisoned every interaction they had.

“Yes she would, quite appropriate don’t you think?… a prettily packaged lie…looks good on the surface , but rotten on the inside”

John looked crestfallen, shit, maybe he shouldn’t have said that out loud, even though it was a perfectly honest expression of how he felt. Apparently, his tongue was even more of a liability when he was drunk. Well, at least his ‘not good’ moments were now few and far between, and John wouldn’t have to put up with his appalling bad manners for very long.

“I don’t want to go….back to her…I mean”

Sherlock looked up in surprise as John moved in closer, pressed against him on the right-hand side. He ran his hand down the length of his arm and stopped at his hand, the one not currently nursing a drink, and squeezed softly, rough fingers pressing into his skin. He squeezed back for reassurance but didn’t let go, and several more minutes had passed before he realised they were still holding hands.

He really should take his coat off now, he was much too hot.

A thumb brushed over the palm of his hand and he could feel the blood rush south to his groin.

Oh god no, not this, not tonight.

He wrenched his hand back and marched across the room in search of another one of those delightful neon drinks and someone suitably annoying to insult, anything to take his mind off the painful twisting sensation in his gut.

Four bottles later, Sherlock Holmes was well and truly pissed, and no longer sporting a semi for his best friend. (Not that he actually cared any more whether he did) His coat had disappeared somewhere ages ago and his scarf, for some reason, was on his head. He was the dread pirate red-beard, scourge of the seven seas.

“I am a legendary swordsman you know John” he breathed hotly in his ear and felt the faint tickle of soft blond hair on the side of his face.

“Fuck off Sherlock….. do you even know what that means?”

“Yes I do….and I am one…that’s me…more than your paltry three continents if you must know”

“Prove it” John said, with an evil glint in his eye.

“What do you mean?”

“A competition… may the best sword win…so to speak”

“Are you suggesting some sort of fight?” John just shook his head and smiled.

“Greg, are you in? Get Anderson and some of the other lads as well, we need at least ten” John flashed him a lop-sided grin then, the kind that spoke of devious plans and hidden intrigue, the kind that, unknown to John, made Sherlock want to do some very, very rude things…

“Can’t find Anderson” Greg reappeared five minutes later with an assortment of Scotland Yard’s finest trailing behind.

“Don’t bother” hiccupped Sherlock, as he popped another button on his aubergine shirt, John’s eyes locked on his, exposing his chest to the waist “he fucked his wife before he came but he wants to get it up for Donovan later so he just pilfered some Viagra from the evidence room off that case that I solved last week”

“Well on that bombshell….. you can go first then ….” John pulled him out into the corridor, and pushed him into a cramped little room, away from eight pairs of accusing eyes. Sherlock staggered a little and banged his shin on precarious stack of old office chairs, then raised his head and looked slowly around, taking in his surroundings with a mild sense of panic in his gut.

John wanted to do it with him now? Here? After making him wait for over three bloody years?

“Get it out then Sherlock…I’ll hold the thingimajig”

John gestured to his general crotch area and Sherlock crossed his hands over his cock defensively.

He wasn’t ready. Not like this.

“Erm…really John…have you really thought this through?....I mean ….sex is….erm” he stuttered helplessly. John would wake up in the morning and regret this, he would hate him and it would ruin their friendship beyond repair.

“Huh?...For fuck’s sake Sherlock…no ,you idiot… I wasn’t….You’re just supposed to photocopy the thing…your thing I mean…penis…dick…oh god, just do it will you? It’s just a bloody game!” John had flushed horribly red.

Oh god, how humiliating, and disappointing if he were really being honest with himself. He had hoped for one desperate, heart-stopping minute that John had decided to stay and had chosen him instead. Stupid, stupid Sherlock. (He felt irritatingly sober again)

But no, to add insult to injury, here he was in a supply closet in New Scotland Yard, dropping his pants and letting John take a photocopy of his flaccid member, to be pinned up on a wall and laughed at if he had to hazard a guess. (And he never guessed)

He averted his eyes when John took his turn, certain he would drool at the sight, and just embarrass himself even more. He already knew what it looked like because he had seen John’s penis several times before, you couldn’t exactly live in each other’s pockets and share a small bathroom without the odd accidental exposure of random body parts.

(Maybe when this ‘game’ was over he could sneak John’s penis picture home,…it might provide some small comfort when he was gone… but of course he would have to laminate it first…. ).

“Won’t we get into trouble for abuse of government property or something?” John broke the awkward silence between them, as he swept up the pictures and stepped back outside, “I’d love to see the identity parade for this”

And twenty minutes later, they did.

Ten cocks at parade rest, a rogue’s gallery of Scotland Yard’s (not so) private dicks. Sally was head judge and the winner would receive a Christmas kiss.

Sherlock threw John a sympathetic glance. That would be more of a punishment than a prize, Christ, he would rather kiss Mary and she had bloody well shot him!

A good eight inches flaccid with an impressive girth, easily the best cock in the room, John Watson was the surprise package in more ways than one.

He hadn’t paid any much attention to any of the others, there could only be one winner as far as he was concerned.

“And third place goes too….” Sally unpinned a picture and read the name scrawled in pencil on the back “Lestrade….well done sir”

Sherlock was mildly impressed, a decent seven inches, nice balls, foreskin still intact, his wife was a fool, that P.E teacher she ran off with had erectile disfunction and had recently received treatment for an STD aswell.

“Second place….Watson…..good things come in small bundles so they say, or not so small in your case”

A few people stepped forward to slap him on the back. John laughed clearly delighted to be runner-up (well obviously, he didn’t have to snog that wailing harpy now)

“And the winner is……drum roll please……oh fucking hell…..Holmes”

For about five seconds you could’ve heard a pin drop, then the room erupted in a burst of ear-splitting sound. John was grinning from ear to ear, Sally looked like she wanted to stick a knife in someone (him, probably), and Sherlock just wished for a bolt of lightning to strike him down.

Then everyone was shouting.

KISS! KISS! KISS! KISS!

Sherlock and Sally were pushed up the steps onto the DJ’s make-shift stage, and if was any consolation (which it wasn’t) she looked just as reluctant as he did. And just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, someone thought it highly amusing to have 50 cent’s ‘Candy Shop’ blasting out. Oh god, how puerile.

He held his breath and looked down into her startled and mildly terrified face, before pressing his lips to hers in a soft, dry and very close-mouthed kiss. That was as much as the baying crowds were going to get.

She smells of lavender…that’s actually quite nice, was his overriding thought.

“Impressive freak… nine inches…you kept that well hidden…but not from him I’ll bet” she swept off the stage in a hurry to placate a furious Anderson. It had almost been worth it to see the murderous look on his face.

Sherlock frowned…hang on a minute….she said nine inches…that wasn’t right…

The ‘him’ in question was currently standing by Lestrade looking innocently amused by the entire embarrassing show. He made his way swiftly back across the room, keen to be anywhere else than here right now, Mycroft’s club or even Serbia had a certain appeal compared to this…

“Can go somewhere else now?” he almost pleaded, retrieving his coat from under a chair.

“Yeah okay….we thought we might go to the Red Lion for a decent pint to celebrate our prize-winning cocks….You up for it?”

“It was you, wasn’t it?” Sherlock could tell from the look on his face, like butter wouldn’t melt. A skilfully executed sabotage, what a devious little bastard he was.

“I might have accidently hit the ‘enlarge’ button while you had your dick out”

“Not by much though” he said, determined not to take these underhand tactics lying down.

“Still feeling confident you would have beaten me anyway?” John leaned in close, making Sherlock’s pulse race, and whispered……

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours”…..

To Be Continued……

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I in no way advocate the photocopying of random body parts!
> 
> Prepare for a much smuttier Part Two coming soon.


	3. The Office Christmas Party - Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock leave the party early to check out each others junk -(this somehow turned into porn with feels woops!)

John was buzzing, and not from the large amount of alcohol he had just poured down his neck. No, the real reason was, that for the first time in god knows how long he had successfully got one over on Sherlock Holmes.

Was it childish? Yes.

Did he care? No.

The outcome would be well worth it, the chance to get a full-on close up of Sherlock’s magnificent cock.

Never, in over three years had he even come close to the sneakiest of peeks, no matter how many times John had ‘accidently’ walked in on a shower or bathroom break. Sherlock guarded that thing like the fucking crown jewels, he may as well stick it in a bullet-proof case. But hell, at least now he knew it was indeed a thing of beauty, and he had to see it again.

(And it was a measure of how pissed Sherlock was, that he had actually agreed to this twisted show and tell).

They wobbled drunkenly down the road to the Red Lion pub, bumping shoulders before veering off like repelling magnetic poles, John heading for the road, and Sherlock for the nearest brick wall. Lestrade grabbed his arm before he could stumble into the path of a moving car.

He gave it the finger as it sped by, and the driver blasted loudly on his horn, some fat guy who he could definitely take in a fight if he suddenly decided to stop.( He didn’t.)

“Fucking wanker” John shouted, even though it was blatantly his fault, or the paths fault for moving when he was trying so very hard to walk in a straight line, which was kind of hard when someone seemed to have attatched small trampolines to the bottom of his shoes when he wasn’t looking.

Sherlock actually giggled while Lestrade just shook his head and called him a ‘bloody prat’.

Before he had the chance of another close brush with death, they bundled through the door into the warm fuggy atmosphere of their ‘friendly’ local pub. The bar staff visibly blanched when Sherlock walked up to the bar. John just goggled, but not for the same reason as them, when the hell did the lanky bastard ever get the first round in?

He settled in a corner booth and waited for Sherlock to wobble back over balancing three pints of lager in his hands while holding three packets of prawn cocktail crisps in his teeth. He opened his mouth and they dropped onto the sticky table top with a splat.

“You got crisps”

“Yes I did”

“Are you feeling all right?”

“Just a little something to soak up the alcohol or I’ll be picking you out of the gutter on the way home”

He blinked, and two ghostly Sherlock’s, both with cute little crinkles across the bridge of their noses, blended back into one.

He shook his head like a dog with a flea in its ear to dislodge the image of the two sexy Sherlock’s, shimmying suggestively in his booze addled mind.

This really wasn’t the time or place for a spontaneous hard-on while having rude thoughts about the man sitting opposite you.

He looked down into his glass so no-one could see his eyes.

“Hey Greg, if you want your wife back why don’t you send her that picture of your prize-winning cock?”

He shouldn’t have said that, it just made him fixate even more on the fabled contents of his best friends’ pants.

“He would have more luck with Molly Hooper” Sherlock chipped in “but not with a rude picture, the old-fashioned way would work better…ask her for dinner, she would like that”

“Huh…maybe if I grew a couple more inches and had plastic surgery so I looked like you Sherlock” Greg rolled his eyes and kicked John’s leg under the table. Sherlock looked so utterly bemused that John just sniggered into his pint.

“So what about you two?, if we’re being personal, that is…got round to being honest with each other yet?”

John had to admit that Lestrade had a very definite skill for seeing what other people might miss. It was his day job after all. But this…everyone they came across saw the same damn thing, and John was bloody fed up with the voice in his head that was constantly trying to tell him no. (Not gay…best friends…wouldn’t want me anyway…not interested in sex…not my area, on and on until the dam broke and he started surreptitiously wanking to thoughts of him whenever he got the chance)

“I never lie” Sherlock said.

“Well, fucking Pinocchio, answer me this, seeing as it’s Christmas, and you should always tell the truth at this time of year…why the hell didn’t you idiots ever try and make a go of it? And don’t give me the ‘I’m not gay ‘ speech John for fuck’s sake…and you”, he rounded on Sherlock “I’ve known you a long time now and I ‘deduce’ you mad wanker, that you are head over heels in love with him”

That's when it all went to hell.

Sherlock pushed back from the table, eyes wide and dangerously dark, accidently upsetting his pint. It rolled off the table and shattered on the hard oak floor, the contents spraying out onto a group of young blokes who were obviously here for a Christmas night out. One of them took a swing which Sherlock easily avoided, connecting with Greg’s jaw instead, so then the cuffs came out and the guy was on his stomach on the wet, sticky floor with his arms wrenched behind him while Greg’s knee pressed roughly into the small of his back.

“Time for a sharp exit I think”

A moment of instant sobriety cleared his mind as he pushed Sherlock out through the doors before they both ended up in a cell to cool off for the night. There was a definite pattern emerging here.

“Don’t talk, just run”

Sherlock lengthened his stride and turned back impatiently when he didn’t follow straight away

“Unless you want to spend all night giving statements after the police arrive…Lestrade won’t let a charge of ‘assaulting a police officer’ slip by”

“He was off duty”

“He’s pissed off and lonely at Christmas, and he misses his wife”

“Excellent point”

“ And we have unfinished business apparently….besides John, I’m rather tired of this tedious dance of ours”

So here he was, pressed against the wall in the hallway of 221B fulfilling his promise to let Sherlock inspect his cock. He had a fucking big mouth sometimes. Of course, there must be better ways to do this than wedged between the door and the stairs, with your pants round your ankles so your flatmate can inspect your balls with a pocket magnifying glass while waxing lyrical about the even spread of pubic hair….

Another Sherlock experiment, then?

Such was his life, these days.

“Can I touch it?”

Sherlock’s voice rumbled from somewhere between his legs.

“What?”

“Your cock John….its hanging right in front of my face”

The mental image made him giggle….shit ,he was still pretty drunk. That could be the only explanation for what he said next.

“Er…yeah…go on then” (he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t already thought about this…so why the hell not?)

“Holy Shit” he clawed at the air, desperate for something to grab as Sherlock reached forward and let the weight of him rest in the palm of his hand, before curling it round to steady him for the next, exploratory touch.

Except that wasn’t just a touch, it was a very definite slide, from the base to the tip of his cock, pale cool fingers exploring hot exposed skin, as a hint of warm breath ghosted over his thigh And that was not the appropriate response to a touch by your flatmate, having your cock twitch like that, his interest apparent by the hardening of his flesh under Sherlock’s hand.

Damn. Whenever he thought he had the upper hand, Sherlock always managed to swing it back round.

“I’m sorry John…. I didn’t think…”

Sherlock let go.

John fought to suppress the disappointed whine at the back of his throat, while his cock bobbed in mid-air and continued to grow, until it lay, engorged and leaking now, flush against his abdomen. Sherlock pushed up from his crouched position and John reached out, a firm but insistent hand on his shoulder that spoke for him – don’t get up…not yet…please…

It was so wrong, to want that beautiful mouth like this, those hands, eyes, cock, arse…hell, every damn thing. One touch was all it had taken and now John wanted more. “Don’t ever be sorry” he said, as his fingers tangled in the soft dark hair at the nape of Sherlock’s neck….

”fuck Sherlock, touch me again…I want you to suck me…please?”He melted back against the cool textured wall as Sherlock sank down onto his knees with a contented sigh. Any thoughts of Mary, the baby, his mess of a life, just vanished, his entire being centred on the hot, wet cocoon of a perfect velvet mouth.

Sherlock licked and sucked like he was _born_ just for this, down on his knees fellating John’s cock, the only word appropriate, cause this was _fucking poetry_ , as he dragged and pulled and massaged with his tongue.

Christ, if he was this good at blow-jobs, what the hell would he be like on his back, with those endless legs spread open, or wrapped around John’s waist while he pounded him across the bed until they were both _raw_ from it?

The visceral smell of sex in the air fuelled his fantasy and made it real.

It had taken him long enough to think these thoughts, and now John really, really, wanted to know the answer to every question he had ever had about Sherlock Holmes and sex.

John’s useless hands came to rest lightly on each side of that bobbing, dark head, and he looked down and watched, drinking in the sight of swollen pink lips stretched wide around his aching cock. He resisted the urge to grip tight and fuck himself right down that throat.

The tingling and trembling sensations seemed to start right down in his toes, spreading up his body until he was a panting, sweaty mess, plastered against the wall, every suck making his stomach curl, as Sherlock pulled the orgasm out of him with each flick of his tongue.

Who had shown him how to sip at the slit like that, or rub at the skin of his perineum before pressing down with his thumb?

He would like to shake that person by the hand or punch them in a fit of jealous rage, he hadn’t quite decided yet.

John moaned and bucked his hips a little as an electric charge shot through him, caught unawares by his embarrassing lack of self-control. But Sherlock seemed pleased by the noises he made and the frantic movements of his stuttering hips as he squeezed John’s arse with his free hand and trailed a finger down between the tight cleft. And that was enough, as much as he could take, as his body surrendered, and he came, pulsing hard into Sherlock’s mouth.

And Sherlock swallowed it down like a champ, every bitter drop, except for one tiny dribble that oozed from the corner of his mouth. John swiped it away with his thumb and wiped it off on his pants.

“I never…” Sherlock tried to stand, knees gone stiff and cramped from his awkward position on the floor.

“Oh God Sherlock…please don’t say that that was your first time?” John felt suddenly sick with the implications of what he had just asked his friend (lover maybe?) to do. But that was impossible surely? No-one could be instantly _that_ good.

“Where Sherlock….how in hell did you learn to do that?”

“Remember….you watch a lot of porn John….and when…if… the time came…I didn’t want to disappoint”

“But why did you decide that time is now? You looked scared to death a couple of hours ago when you thought I was going to molest you in the photocopy room”

“You’re leaving soon…and I realised it was the last chance I was ever likely to get….besides, I made a promise, you get to see me too” Sherlock said, as he straightened up, smoothed down his coat and gently tucked John’s dick back into his pants.

Why the hell could he never guess what went on in that mad fucking head?

“Fuck promises Sherlock…this isn’t part of some game. If you still want to do this I want to do it right. We’re going upstairs right now and I’m taking you to bed.”

Even if ‘right’ really meant all kinds of fucking wrong…. but he would have to save the guilt and recriminations for another night, or maybe not at all. He had been handed a gold-plated invitation to take everything he was afraid to want, and Sherlock was right, if they didn’t take this chance there might not be another one.

He grabbed Sherlock’s hand and pulled him towards the stairs, thankful that Mrs Hudson was out, because of the noise they were making in their haste to get inside the flat, tripping over their own clumsy feet and laughing like two naughty school boys. The door slammed shut and John was on him, pushing him backwards into the kitchen until he was backed-up against the table-top. A set of glass vials in a wooden test-tube tray teetered on the edge, but thankfully didn’t fall. Not that he would care anyway, not when Sherlock was making such desperate little noises and dragging his nails down John’s back while he worried at the skin of that soft white neck, sucking his mark there so that even in the light of day they couldn’t hide the fact that they had done this.

Finally.

It was just supposed to be a look, a moment of voyeuristic gratification to take with him when he left, not a frantic fuck. Shit, he should slow this down, because Sherlock had all but told him that he had never done this before. But Sherlock, apparently had other plans, as always, and once that decision had been made he saw no sense in holding back.

“Bedroom”

“Yes”

He expected a blushing virgin if he was honest, some hesitation once it came down to it, not a one-man fucking tornado who shoved him back on the bed and pinned his arms above his head. Sherlock kissed like he wanted to taste you from the inside out, his tongue searching hungrily around John’s mouth.

“You were jealous” Sherlock sat up and searched his face, eyes glinting like black diamonds in the dark.

“What?”

“Tonight, when I had to kiss Sally, when you pulled your little trick on me you weren’t expecting that to be the prize” John wriggled a little underneath the surprisingly heavy weight pressing down on his thighs, but he was trapped, like a butterfly pinned to a board.

“Look at me John…is this what you want?”

How could he not look as Sherlock began a slow striptease, popping open the buttons on his shirt, one by one, eyes never leaving his own. Next the belt, a jingle of metal and a whisper of leather, and a clatter that made him jump as it was carelessly tossed to the floor.

“Can I do this bit”

Sherlock nodded his assent and moved up the bed to kneel beside him, resting his hands lightly on the top of his thighs, as he waited for John to pull himself together and unbutton his bloody pants. He fumbled like a teenage boy who hadn’t worked out the mechanics of a front-fastening bra, ready to rip the damn button off if it didn’t slide through the hole this time. They pushed the heavy wool together, down Sherlock’s thighs.

That just left the underwear, plain black wrapping concealing the best fucking Christmas present he had ever had in his life, even better than the Raleigh Chopper bike of 1983 or the second-hand ZX Spectrum of 1985, the last present he got from his dad before he died.

Sherlock sucked in a breath as John eased his fingers around the elastic band and drew it slowly down. He wasn’t going to hurry this, there would only ever be one first time after all. His thumbs brushed against a nest of downy black pubic hair, surprisingly soft to the touch, and even better than that, John could feel the heat from Sherlock’s cock radiating up.

Well, that squashed one very prevalent myth regarding Sherlock, John thought, he was stiff as a rod, his body at least, clearly very interested in what was going on. And Jesus Christ, it was almost as big as his own in length, but not as wide around, as pretty as a cock could ever be described as being, because, let’s face it, most of them were ugly fuckers weren’t they? Years of communal showers and changing rooms had shown him that.

“Is it worth it then?”

John snapped back to reality and realised he had been sitting there for god knows how long, completely mesmerised, just holding on to Sherlock’s hips, staring at the erection which quivered slightly in front of his face with every dip and shift of the bed. They couldn’t pretend not to know exactly what had caused this, and he didn’t think he could possibly put this into words, but he had to try.

“I don’t need a quick flash of your bits to prove that you are actually human you idiot, I already know you are. You’re more real to me than anyone will ever be Sherlock, not some illusion, woven out of shadows and lies, you died for me and came back, twice. So…. you are most definitely worth it, and not just because of your bloody gorgeous body parts”

It must have been the right thing to say as Sherlock tipped forward and pressed him back down until they were lying flush against each other again, a deeply erotic sensation with Sherlock being naked while he was still fully dressed, as the heat of him penetrated John’s skin.

Not for long though. Two pairs of hands made quick work of his jumper, jeans and pants, and he tossed them over the side to join Sherlock’s in a heap on the floor.

There was nothing between them now, just honesty and skin.

John remembered childhood Christmases, playing with the empty cardboard boxes and torn wrapping paper while the actual contents lay forgotten, pushed aside.

Not this time.

As they finally moved against each other, John knew that with Sherlock he had finally managed to unwrap the truth.


	4. Got To Pick-A-Pocket Or Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dickensian London at Christmas-with smut! Posh kid Sherlock and scruffy urchin John (rich boy/poor boy historically inaccurate sex ensues - what's not to love?)
> 
> (I'm posting this a day later than planned because I've been trapped in Christmas shopping hell - Bah Humbug!)

“Do come along Sherlock, Papa is waiting, we cannot be late”

Sherlock trudged slowly down the driveway, ignoring Mycroft’s impatient huffs. His feet crunched on gravel which glittered like a sheet of diamonds in the chill night air. There would be a hard frost tonight. Faint patterns like summer leaves in bloom already wrote themselves onto the leaded window panes of the silent house as he left it reluctantly behind.

Mama sat in the carriage waiting, concealed by the dark waxed drapes that kept out the wind and rain and Mycroft stood stiffly by the open doorway and tapped his cane upon the steps.

“Up now Sherlock, before the poor beast tears its mouth to shreds”

He quickened his pace at that, it wouldn’t do to have Jute hurt herself. The ebony horse pawed at the ground, dragging up the stones into untidy little heaps, and huffing clouds of hot, horsey breath into the cold night air. Perone, the grand old dame, snickered softly to calm the young horse and rubbed her nose lovingly along Jute’s proud, elegant neck.

‘Wild and impetuous that one, just like you master Sherlock’, the groomsman had said, and Sherlock had laughed as he fisted tight handfuls of raven hair and squeezed her flanks hard between his skinny adolescent thighs. It was intoxicating to feel such power beneath him, the bunch and flex of muscle and the rush of the wind in his ears like a violent storm sweeping by.

But there would be no more riding now, until the winter months had passed, as Papa had called them all down to London for Christmas, and the main house was to be shut until Springtime at least. Mothballed, with only a skeleton staff.

He loved the rambling estate but he loved London just as much. The smells and the people, the sights and the sounds, made a heady whirlpool of human existence that Sherlock was desperate to explore.

Mycroft plopped down heavily on the velvet cushions at his side and tapped the side of the carriage, signalling to the driver to move out.

“You may as well rest brother, the journey will take a long while”

Sherlock closed his eyes and leant his head back against the padded seat, the rocking motion, and the gentle rattle of the wheels on the road soon lulling him to sleep.

~*~

John Watson wriggled under the bed and joined his sister on the rough, dusty floorboards beneath. He held her hand tightly in the dark and clasped his small hand across her mouth. She whimpered softly, but he held her still against him just the same, scared that she would bolt if he loosened his grip for even a second.

“We know you’re in there squirt, you can’t hide forever…you and that sweet piece Harriet”

The bed shifted slightly above them and Harriet looked at him with wide, pleading eyes. He shook his head and held his breath, willing the frail body to just lie still for a few more minutes, and then surely they would be gone.

“Mags is gettin angry now Jonny boy, and you know what to do to stand a hope in hell of stayin here…you’ve got till tomorrow night, or it’s the workhouse…your choice”

Jim’s hateful, singsong voice sounded through the shabby wooden door. One swift kick and it would give and he was more than surprised they hadn’t tried that yet, but it could only be a matter of time now Mr Magnusson had issued the final demand for his rent.

He breathed a sigh of relief as the three dark shadows moved away from the window and melted back into the night.

“Johnny?” *cough, cough*a thin, reedy voice sounded from above. He scrambled out again and bent over his mother, stroking her hand softly as she retched over the side of the bed, spitting thick globs of mucous onto the floor.

“I’m sorry Johnny”

“It’s okay mother, don’t fret, you need to get out of this damp air is all” he tucked the scratchy wool blankets around her and plumped up the pillows as best as he could to elevate her head. He wished he could open a window to let in some new air, but the London smog was rolling in tonight, dragged up the Thames on the evening tide. It would only make things worse.

“What do we do John?” his sister sat beside him and he brushed away a tear that ran down her face.

“Same as always Harry love, I go and rob the toffs on Oxford Street… won’t miss a few bob at this time of year…they’ve got more money than sense, the stupid posh twats. So don’t worry, I’ll get the money before noon so’s we can pay the rent and Jim’ll leave us alone”

He wished he could believe that himself. Moriarty was determined to recruit John to his gang and no-one ever dared to say no, well, everyone except John, and he had made his family a target because of his stubborn determination to go it alone. But working for Jim’s street gang meant doing jobs for Mr Magnusson too, breaking into the posh houses to steal papers and ‘secrets’, a dangerous game to play, cause it was harder to run if you got cornered in a house. He could blend into city streets quite well, and no-one ever seemed to notice a small, very ordinary-looking boy as he brushed by.

“Go get the bowls out Harry, we can ‘ave some supper now”

He followed her into the tiny kitchen and poked at a pot that stood on the hearth. Well, at least it wasn’t burnt. That was the best you could say about the thin, greasy stew, whipped from the fire before Jim came knocking, and now cooling in congealed lumps that made his stomach turn.

There was only just enough to fill two dishes, but he would go without. Mother needed it more than he did if she was to get well, her chest had grown much worse during this recent cold, damp spell. John had spent long hours pouring over the medical book that mother kept stuffed in a wooden chest upstairs, and a pneumonia was his best guess. She could die if he couldn’t raise the money for a doctor, but he couldn’t tell Harry that yet, she was worried enough about the unpaid rent.

He sat down on the bed, now downstairs cause mother couldn’t manage the stairs anymore, and propped her up again, holding the slight weight of her on his left side, lifting careful spoonfuls to her mouth. When the bowl was empty he tucked her back in again and followed Harry up the stairs to bed, a rough sackcloth mattress on the bare floor, snuggled up together to share body heat.

His stomach growled loudly, but he ignored its pleas. Tomorrow then, money and food, or before the week’s end they would all be cast out onto the streets.

~*~

The morning dawned bright and crisp, the promised frost staining the dirty roads white, as dazzling a day as you would ever get in London at Christmas time.

Sherlock uncurled his body and stretched out in the soft squishy bed. A delicious fire licked up in the grate, orange flames dancing as it warmed through the last of the chill from the night air.

“Ah, awake at last master Sherlock? Your mama says to call you for breakfast and that you and she are going out this morning, so you’re to dress warm”

“Thank you Mrs Turner, I’ll be right down”

The housekeeper left a pitcher of hot water and a towel on the dresser and bobbed at the knees slightly before turning to go. Sherlock considered burrowing back down into the warm cosy depths again, but the sound of raised voices and the clatter of hooves drew him out, echoing from the street below.

They were going to Oxford Street he was sure. His skin prickled with excitement at the thought of such a gathering of human life. Oh, there would be trees and decorations and baubles galore, but the people…Sherlock loved to watch, and guess at their lives from the way they tipped their hat or in which pocket they stowed their gloves. He would know the profession from the cut of a suit or which hunt you rode for by a smear of mud on a riding boot.

Sherlock fished out his leather pocket book from under his pillow and rescued the nub of pencil from where it had rolled under the bed, ‘The Science Of Deduction’ the title page read.

Mycroft laughed when he saw it, propped against the milk jug on the dining table when he was seated at breakfast , munching idly on a piece of toast while mama fussed about the length of his hair.

“Oh Sherlock, I marvel at the things that must go on in your strange little head…Science indeed!” he scoffed, flicking the pages of The Times in what he thought was a superior manner.

Sherlock ignored him and batted mama’s hand away, from where her fingers were twisting lovingly in his curls.

“Oh do eat a little more my darling, before we go out into the cold, or at least drink some warm tea, one slice of toast is simply not enough”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. Eating was boring, a pure mechanical exercise to fuel his transport, nothing more. Sherlock ate the bare minimum, because it was simply dull to sit there like a cow in a field chewing the cud.

He consented to another cup of tea instead and another small piece of toast and honey, just to see mama smile at him again.

They took the small carriage this time, just enough room for two. Mycroft would take a cab later that morning to his club before meeting father in Kensington for lunch. Perone trotted through the streets, completely at ease with the press and noise of other horses and bodies around her. Jute would have shied and took fright at the hustle and bustle, not yet accustomed to the constant ebb and flow of city life. It wasn’t fair to have her shut up like that in the stable out back. Sherlock dreamt of thundering over the rolling green hills and through fields of long, swaying grass.

Soon my love, I’ll take you back.

~*~

John rolled off the mattress and sat up to rub the crusts from his gritty eyes. He hadn’t slept well ,it had been too cold, only managing to fall into a fitful slumber some time around dawn. Harry stirred beside him, it would have done her good to have a little more sleep perhaps, maybe on Sunday they could do that, but she had to work today and would have to get up now. John sighed heavily, if he didn’t get that money today they wouldn’t be here on Sunday anyway. There was nothing for breakfast, so they assuaged their knawing hunger with some boiled water instead.

John felt light-headed. If he didn’t eat soon he would pass out and that wouldn’t be much good for any of them.

Harry fussed around mother, plumping her pillows and pressing soft kisses to the top of her head.

“Go now my girl, or you’ll be late” she smiled wanly, looking so small and frail that it made John’s heart ache. A hot twist of anger curled in his gut. This was so fucking unfair, mother and Harry didn’t deserve this.

He walked with Harry to the milliners shop. Mrs Hudson had been kind enough to let Harry take over mother’s job when she fell ill, not wanting to see a lone woman with two young children cast out on the street, but that modest wage wasn’t enough anymore with the increase in rent from ten shillings a week to twelve. Mr Magnusson was just a greedy bastard who ruled the slum house tenants with an iron thumb.

“Don’t leave without me, I’ll come get you at four” he warned. The streets were dangerous after dark for a pretty young girl such as his sister was, and Jim might still be hanging around, ready to pounce.

“Be safe Johnny please”

“Hey there, don’t you worry about that now…I never get caught”

He flashed her a smile and gave a jaunty wave as he turned away, faking a confidence that he didn’t really feel. John was an excellent pick-pocket, small and bland-looking and quick as a flash. Before the toffs noticed that anything was wrong, he was gone, melting away into the crowd. He knew all the best short-cuts and safest routes when the Peeler’s started sniffing about, leaping and sliding over the rooftops just as easily as he did on the ground. But Oxford Street would be crawling with Jim’s lot too and they were much harder to avoid than the law, and if they got him they would beat any money he had found out of him anyway, and then he would be back to square one again.

The scent of fresh bread made his empty stomach clench as he passed a bakers shop. The owner’s dog lay on the front step knawing on half a scorched loaf. It would be so tempting to abandon his pride for once, and wrestle the little terrier for the meagre scrap of bread, but he passed by avoiding the gaze of the baker’s wife as she scowled at him from the doorway. Fuck, he must look really desperate.

His feet were sore from the cobblestones that poked through the thin soles of his boots by the time he made it to Oxford Street so he allowed himself a moment to rest and take in the incredible sight. Ladies and gents walked arm in arm along the garishly decorated thoroughfare, garlands of twisted holly and mistletoe hung from every doorway and window, enhancing the tempting displays inside the fancy stores, selling goods he could only dream of being able to afford. He would buy a pretty necklace for Harry maybe, and for his mother a beautiful crystal ornament in the shape of a swan. But that was just a wild fantasy, for now all he needed was something to eat and enough money to pay their bill.

He looked around for the first likely target and spotted a young skinny lad, wandering down the street with his nose in a book. John followed him at a distance, waiting for his chance to make a move.

~*~

Mama had said not to wander too far and to meet back at Selfridges no later than One. He expected she would want to take tea at some restaurant before they left, and had probably arranged to meet with some other old biddies to gossip about the other families of note who were currently in town.

Not that he minded much, they would just fuss and say how tall he’d grown and how the young ladies must be swooning at the sight of such a handsome young man. Did they really do that? The habits of fainting females were not really his forte.

On the other hand, the hair on the back of his neck had been prickling for a while now. Someone had their eye on him, shadowing his movements down the road and Sherlock knew exactly why aswell.

An easy target? Oh dear. It was a common mistake it seemed, to underestimate his physical capabilities, many a boy at school had come unstuck that way.

Sherlock continued along at exactly the same pace, head in his book, unhurried, content to bide his time.

He smiled to himself, this could be fun.

~*~

John quickened his pace, the lad was almost within striking distance now. It was just as he had thought, the people passing by didn’t even spare a passing glance at the small blond, scruffy teenager skilfully winding his way through the crowd.

He sidled up behind the tall mop-haired boy and prepared to make his move as he brushed past, eyes on a small leather wallet peeking temptingly from the pocket of a long dark frock-coat.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you”

Long pale fingers snapped out of nowhere and wrapped themselves tightly around his wrist, ensnaring him in an iron grip.

The boy hadn’t even turned his head.

“And I wouldn’t shout out, because you really don’t want to call attention to yourself either, am I right?”

“Fuck off you poncey toff” John hissed under his breath as he struggled against the boys’ implacable hold. Christ, he was a damn sight stronger than he looked.

“Brave words from the oik who thought he could just help himself to the contents of my pocket” the boy sneered back completely unimpressed, twisting John around until they were face to face.

Slanted, piercing eyes of a strange and deeply unsettling mix of yellow, green and blue stared back into his own, dark navy and defiant. They stood like that for what must have been a mere heartbeat, but which felt like a thousand years and then soft pink lips, enhanced at the top with an elegant bow, pulled back into a smile of pure delight, as the boy let out a deep, rumbling laugh. John reeled a little, it felt like he had just been punched in the gut.

“Let me go you arsehole”

“Oh no, I think we can do much better than that…I don’t think much of your current method…and I thought that maybe I could be of some help?”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about”

“Yes you do…you just tried to steal from me, unsuccessfully I might add, but I could point you in the right direction if you’ll accept my kind offer, that is…so how about it?”

This toff was weird for sure, John thought, what was his game anyway? If he touched another mark, he might just turn John over to the law. And who would believe him, a slum kid, that some posh brat had helped him on the rob?

But he just couldn’t turn away now, his curiosity had been piqued. (Not that he was going anywhere any time soon, with the bastard still holding his wrist).

“Okay, I’ll just tell you how… and who” the boy smiled as he felt John relax, “no-one is as observant as I am so I’m sure you’ll have much more success this time”

“Pretty sure of yourself…are you always like that?”

“Yes…I am….now pay attention, that man with the grey top-hat and the lady in the blue dress? They are lovers on a secret tryst and are carrying some extra cash. It’s tucked in the top of his boot, probably in a leather pouch, I’ll drop my scarf in front of her feet and when they are distracted you can bend down, tie your bootlace or something and for god’s sake do it quick”

The boy dropped his hand and moved swiftly along the street, just expecting John to follow along behind. He could have bolted then, buggered off out of sight and found a new target somewhere else, in another street. But something about this odd boy had him hooked and he stumbled along in his haste to catch up.

It went like a dream. the boy dropped his scarf like he said and the man bent down to pick it up. As he reached forward a gap appeared between his calf and the top of his boot and John slipped swift fingers in and drew out the hidden pouch.

They stood in the shadow of an awning and inspected the stolen loot.

‘We’re just like pirates’ the boy said ‘and this street is the seven seas’.

They dodged up and down a few more times giddy with their growing success, laughing together like they’d known each other for years. The boy, Sherlock he said his name was, had some sort of magical gift of knowing just who and when to make a hit, and soon his pockets were jingling with cash. And if anyone spared them more than a passing glance, they were just a young gentleman and his servant, enjoying each other’s company and having a lark.

John should have minded that, he was nobodies lackey, and proud of that fact, but he didn’t, cause this was something more, he could feel it stirring in the pit of his gut.

“Don’t look round, but there’s a short, skinny boy with black hair watching us from behind the horse-chestnut cart”

“Oh fuck”

“You know him, but he’s no friend I can tell”

“Yeah, the evil little twat….Jim Moriarty his name is, I owe his boss rent or my sister, my mother and me are gonna get kicked out of our house….I’ve got til tonight, but I don’t trust him not to pocket the money for himself and deny that I ever paid. I’m up shit creek either way”

Sherlock pursed his lips and stared at Jim through narrowed eyes.

“How much did we get….enough?”

“Yeah, and twice as much to spare, but that won’t matter when him and his mates beat the crap out of us”

“He wouldn’t dare lay a finger on me”

“He’s a fucking psycho, so yeah, he would”

John could see Jim drawing more stealthily near, sliding through the press of people with a practised ease. He was flanked on either side by the muscle, Seb and Bill, and although he knew that Sherlock was strong he doubted whether he could stand up against two brick shit-houses like them. He could almost hear them cracking their knuckles in preparation from here as Jim flashed him an evil grin, as they moved in for the kill.

“Do you trust me?” Sherlock whispered in his ear then and John nodded cause it was true “Then run…come on” Sherlock grabbed his hand tightly and pulled him along, breaking into a run.

He was fast god dammit, but John didn’t dare ask him to slow down. Their feet pounded along the pavement as Sherlock steered them deftly through the throng at breakneck speed while Jim and his cronies thundered along , not gaining any ground on them, but not exactly falling behind. John stumbled as his body sagged, hunger and fatigue choosing the worst possible moment to get the better of him.

Oh god please don’t let them catch me now, he pleaded as Sherlock slowed a little at the pavements edge, frantically searching for some means to get away.

He turned to John with a manic glint in his eye and asked again

“Do you still trust me?”

“Yes…what for?”

“We are about to make our imminent and daring escape”

“How? For god’s sake Sherlock, they’re right there”

John’s eyes widened in fear as Jim drew near, and through a flash of sunlight he caught the unmistakable glint of a pocket knife, no doubt with his name already written on it in blood.

“What are we going to do Sherlock?” he shouted panic

“We’re going to jump in front of that cab….now”

Sherlock dragged him off the pavement and into the road, right into the path of a large horse-drawn cab, they froze for a second and time stood still as the world filled with a rolling tomb of metal and wood and ton of terrified horse-flesh. He dived forward, pushing Sherlock clear, feeling the heat from the horses skin as they narrowly avoided an idiotic brush with death.

“You’re fucking mental” he gasped as they rolled over the cold damp ground. He looked up to see several worried faces peering down at them where they lay, mud-soaked and panting, Jim and the other lads had melted away into the crowd.

“Are you alright young sir?” A copper stepped forward to offer Sherlock his hand, and by god he looked a pretty sight, caked with sticky mud all down one side, hair a riotous mess.

“Yes, thank you my good man” Sherlock said, in a posh haughty voice “I do believe this young lad just saved my life” The copper looked down at him sprawled on the ground in an equally dishevelled state, not believing a word of it, but not about to contradict the wealthy young gentlemen currently shaking pieces of straw out of his hair.

“Mind how you go then sir” he nodded to Sherlock and walked away with a frown on his face.

Sherlock reached down and offered his hand

“Huh” said John “I see the bloody bastard didn’t give a shit that I was lying in the gutter too”

“Oh don’t fuss, it worked, they’ve gone, what more do you want?”

John shrugged and frowned, sadly. The posh twat didn’t fucking get it after all. He would go back to his cushy life and John would be alone again, left to the tender mercies of those evil gits and with a sick mother to care for too.

The problem wasn’t solved, just put aside until later, that’s all.

~*~

“Sherlock? Oh my goodness…just look at you! What on earth have you done!”

Mama bustled down the street in a fury of fox-fur and petticoats, flanked on either side by a Selfridge’s shop-boy, balancing parcels and boxes on each arm. He made a cursory attempt to scrape some mud from his boot on the side of the kerb and smooth down his breeches with equally dirty hands.

It didn’t help at all.

“Why do you always assume it is something that I have done” Sherlock said with an exasperated sigh, giving up his filthy clothes as a lost cause.

Mama smiled indulgently and much to his embarrassment, reached out and ruffled his hair.

“Because you have a talent for trouble Sherlock dear, I am your mother after all, and know your habits only too well, and you’re being rather rude too, aren’t you going to introduce me to this charming young man?”

John looked suitably startled as he picked himself up from the ground and attempted, rather fruitlessly to pat his hair down and tuck his shabby shirt into his trousers. Sherlock caught a glimpse of firm, creamy skin before it was covered again. He stared at the same spot long after it had disappeared beneath John’s clothes.

Mama nudged him impatiently.

“Oh…er…this is John, Mama, he has just saved me from certain death by horse drawn cab”

“Don’t be so over dramatic Sherlock…the poor boy has ruined his clothes because of you and your dangerous games, what were you thinking of?”

Sherlock huffed in protest, but said no more, it was simply better not to argue when Mama was in one of her particular moods. All the better for John though, cast in the role of unwitting hero rather than a partner in crime. He glanced at the boy who looked awkwardly around, not quite knowing whether to make his excuses and leave. But that was unthinkable, this morning had been so much fun, the thrill of the chase, blood pumping through their veins, it had felt like just the two of them against the world.

Sherlock didn’t want this to be the end.

The silence was broken by the unmistakable sound of an empty stomach which grumbled and growled. John looked mortified as Mama turned to look at him wide-eyed and the shop-boys sniggered by her side. Sherlock gave them the finger behind Mama’s back. Did they imagine that they were somehow superior to his friend, just because they had had the good fortune to be given a job in a fancy department store?

John was worth a hundred of them.

“My poor child, you sound half-starved, that settles it Sherlock, your friend simply must come back home with us for lunch. We can leave now, as soon as they bring the carriage round”

“Really?” John whispered uncertainly in his ear “Doesn’t she know I’m just some slum-kid?....Why would she invite me for lunch at your fancy house?”

“Why do you assume it’s fancy?”

John just rolled his eyes “Come on….seriously…you’re toffs…and I’m just some…oik…your words” he added defensively.

“Mama doesn’t think like that, she see’s a boy who helped her son…that’s all she needs to know…is that a problem? Should we treat you appallingly and with contempt simply because of a mere accident of birth?”

John looked stunned “I’m sorry, but it’s just not what a kid like me expects”

Sherlock smiled. He had never been so proud to call himself a Holmes as at that moment with his wonderful mother who defied convention at every turn.

The carriage rounded the corner and pulled up alongside the kerb. Perone snorted wet horsey breath in his ear while he stroked her long neck. John hung back twisting a handkerchief nervously in his hands.

“Come see her, she’s a lovely old girl…I’ll show you my horse Jute, when we get back”

“You have your own Horse? Bloody hell….Oh pardon me ma’am” he shot Mama an apologetic look.

“I’ve heard much worse from the stable lads John, and from Sherlock here, when his temper is up, turns the air quite blue at times…I can’t imagine where he gets that from”

The driver got down to hand her into the carriage and they clambered up behind, sharing the seat opposite her. The drive back was wonderful, every jolt and sway pressed him up against John’s shoulder and leg. Sherlock bit his lip and looked out of the window to hide his blushing face with no idea why this felt as good as it did.

John was silent too, but Sherlock caught him out of the corner of his eye, staring at him too from time to time.

Mama noticed nothing, leaning back with her eyes closed, her classic thinking pose. Sherlock was glad to escape her scrutiny, although even he couldn’t articulate what is was that he _didn’t_ want her to see.

Lunch was a fine affair. Because of their messy clothes they all ate in the kitchen, much to the surprise and consternation of cook, but Sherlock was quite annoyed when the maids started twittering around, nudging each other and giggling while staring at his John. The same John that was currently devouring everything that was put in front of him with a great deal of gusto, letting out little sighs and moans as he peppered the table with crumbs.

“Oh god this is so good” he sighed biting off another enormous chunk of ham and egg pie.

Cook beamed proudly. “See master Sherlock…someone appreciates my cooking….doesn’t eat enough to keep a bird alive, this one” she nudged John fondly and pointed an accusing finger at Sherlock. He retaliated against this bullying campaign by cutting himself a large slice of vanilla sponge cake.

John stopped eating and looked suddenly guilty, holding the crust of pie as if it were a grenade with the pin pulled out.

“What’s wrong John?”

“My mother…and Harry…oh god I’m so selfish” he dropped the food back down onto his plate.

“All taken care of my love” cook called from behind them “mistress had me make up a basket to take on home with you…there’s enough there to feed you all l for a week or more, if you store it well that is”

Sherlock thought it prudent to leave at this point as John looked more embarrassed than pleased by the cloying female attention bearing down on him from all sides. He would offer John a way out of their smothering torture and they might get some time to themselves into the bargain, and that was suddenly important, to be alone with him.

“Come see my horse John…if you’re finished that is, I don't want to rush you”

John looked at him with a grateful smile. He glanced at cook and she nodded her assent, satisfied with the meal he had consumed, under orders from Mama, no doubt, to make sure he didn’t leave the table before he had eaten his fill.

The stable out back was quite warm and dry, smelling strongly of horse and sweat and leather and something else that Sherlock couldn’t quite define. It was his favourite place to be, curled up in a corner somewhere, just listening to the horses snuffle and breathe. It made him feel calm and at peace.

“She’s a rare beauty Sherlock” John approached Jute and patted her neck without fear. The young horse tossed her head a little and then buried her soft, wet nose in John’s palm. He laughed “She’s after a tasty treat I think, shame we didn’t pinch an apple from the kitchen, I bet she would’ve enjoyed that”

“Here” Sherlock relished the look of surprise on John’s face as he tossed a piece of fruit into his hand and he offered it up in just the right way, held flat on the palm of his hand. Jute snuffled it up and mashed it between her teeth, showering them both with soggy lumps.

“She’s even hungrier than I am” John laughed.

He turned to Sherlock and the laughter died out as he searched his face for god knows what before pushing him back against a stack of hay bales and pressing his lips roughly against Sherlock’s mouth.

“What did you do that for?” Sherlock gasped as they pulled apart again.

“Cause I wanted to…its nice…kissing, that is”

“Don’t you kiss girls?”

“Yeah, sometimes…if they let me” John admitted, looking up at him with darkened eyes

“Do you like it?”

“Kissing girls? Yeah, I like it some… but I like you more”

They stared at each other for a few tense moments until Sherlock said in a rough, strained voice,

“Do it again”

So John kissed him again and it was different this time. He put his hands on Sherlock’s face and angled his head to the side, and then a hot velvet tongue was pushing past his lips into his mouth and swirling around inside. It felt so wonderful and strange to taste another person like this, and a boy besides, but it felt so very right.

With no idea what to do he simply copied John’s every move, flicking his own tongue out to tangle with John’s and using his teeth to delicately nip at John’s lips. This made John moan and push their bodies together, connecting them almost from head to toe.

Oh, that was a surprise. Sherlock blushed as he felt his penis pushing out against the starched material of his breeches, as it became hot and filled with blood. Of course this had happened a few times before, it wasn’t new in that respect. Sherlock just hadn’t connected it with this. Sometimes he woke in the morning with it like that, poking upright and hard and leaking liquid from the tip, or there were the other times when was disturbed in the middle of the night and his groin was coated in a warm, sticky mess that stained his pyjama’s and made him itch when it dried onto his skin.

“What was it?” he had wanted to know, asking Mycroft, because he was older, and a boy, and should know these things.

“Come” Mycroft had told him

“Come where?” Sherlock had said, and Mycroft just shook his head and laughed, leaving him feeling stupid and annoyed because he didn’t understand.

But now he did, and John did too as he rubbed him through his clothes with the heel of his hand until he was hot and trembling all over and he couldn’t breathe anymore, the air puffing out of his lungs in ragged pants.

“I can get you off if you want me too…I know how to do that” John whispered in his ear as he clung to his shoulders unable to speak or even think. He gave a shaky nod and John continued, sliding his fingers up and down his prick until Sherlock thought he would die from the sensation.

“Can I take it out….get my hand around properly?”

John didn’t wait for an answer, thank god, because Sherlock couldn’t have formed the words. He simply undid the buttons around his crotch and slid his hand right into Sherlock’s pants, past all fabric barriers to stroke his erection with a bare hand.

“Oh fuck” he bit his lip as the swear word slipped out, but he just couldn’t help it as John rubbed and pulled, dragging his thumb through the stuff that had leaked out the top and using it to let his hand slide smoothly up down. He buried his face in John’s shoulder, scared that he would cry out and someone would come running and see what they were doing to each other, hidden away in here.

John’s hand squeezed harder and moved faster, and Sherlock couldn’t control the way his hips jerked forward, trying to push his prick up into that tight space. He just needed to move like this, instinct taking over his mind instead.

“Steady there lad…let it go…I’ve got you” John coaxed softly in his ear as the pressure built and a desperate whine escaped his lips, his prick pulsing out warm stripes of white fluid onto his belly and John’s hand.

John kissed him again, softly this time, and licked the mess from his palm, then he took out his handkerchief and wiped the rest from Sherlock’s belly, stroking his free hand gently up and down Sherlock’s arm, like gentling a skittish colt.

He shuddered a little, feeling weak and wobbly in the aftermath.

“Did you like that then? It felt nice, yeah?”

Nice didn’t even begin to describe what that had been, but Sherlock knew that he very much wanted to try that again, and he wanted to do the same to John too.

“What about you….don’t you want me to...?” he started, but the moment was stolen by a stern voice calling out from the yard. What the hell was Mycroft doing back so early? He was supposed to be lunching with father in town.

“Sherlock, come now, Mama has arranged baths for you and your _friend_ , and I can see why too, you’re absolutely filthy child”

He looked at John in alarm, not sure if he had caught the sarcasm in his brothers’ tone

“Just go on back through to the kitchen John is it? I would like a private word with my brother before you both go”

John shuffled past and shot Sherlock an anxious look which told him that he definitely did understand what was really going on.

“You can’t have him that way Sherlock” warned Mycroft as he gripped his arm, “ two boys, together like that, it simply isn’t allowed, besides, he isn’t of our class”

“Liar, you’ve done that too” Sherlock protested because he realised now that it was true, he had seen it with his own eyes, but hadn’t quite understood what he was seeing at the time.

“I was reading a book behind the sofa in the study and you were there, with Miles, your friend and you kissed him…down there…on his cock”

Sherlock flushed as the rude word came out of his mouth.

“And what do you think Papa will do if he finds out?”

“I don’t care, you’re just jealous because I’ve actually got a friend, and he likes me and doesn’t call me weird and a freak, so stop trying to spoil things Mycroft because it’s just not fair”

“On your head be it then brother, but don’t say I didn’t warn you…you know it would be so much worse for John if this ever came out? You can go to jail for buggery Sherlock, and they give harsher sentences to members of the lower class”.

Of course he knew what buggery was, it was a man fucking another man up the arse.

“We didn’t do that Mycroft”

“Yes, I gathered that, but how long do you suppose it will be before you do?”

But that was ridiculous, he couldn’t imagine how that would even work, or feel nice like John’s hand had, at that. He pushed past Mycroft and stomped across the yard back towards the house.

(Mycroft is wrong, I’ll bet John wouldn’t even want to do that)

“What did he say, did he see me touching your prick?” John whispered worriedly in his ear “Cause we weren’t doing anything wrong if that’s what you thought”

“Mycroft said two boys…..shouldn’t do…that” he whispered back, as Sherlock led him up to the bathrooms on the upper floor, and waited for Mama to appear.

“Your brothers’ a twat then cause my mother says we’re all God’s creatures and love is love even if that persons’ got the same bits and bobs as you have” John answered defiantly, daring him to challenge his words.

Not that he would even dare, that sounded about perfect to him.

Sherlock was to take his bath in his own room, in front of crackling fire, while John would use the bathroom next door and have the luxury of Mama’s beautiful roll-top bath. John laughed when he saw the copper tub that Sherlock would have to bathe in.

“How the bloody hell are you going to fold your long legs into that tiny thing, even our old tin bath at home has more room than that, it can fit me and Harry both at the same time”

Sherlock scowled. It was a little ridiculous, but John was a guest and it was important that he be made to feel welcome, and not like the scruffy street kid that John himself seemed to think he was.

“We’re to leave our clothes outside the bathroom door, they’re to be washed straight away to get the mud off before it stains”

John looked uncomfortable at this news, the fact that his clothes would be taken from him

“I can’t stay all day Sherlock I have to get back for Harry by four…and mother…she’s not well…”

“Why didn’t you say? About your mother, that is?”

“I can’t burden a stranger with my troubles Sherlock, I never even saw you before today….and what the hell could you do about that anyway?” he added defiantly

“That’s where you’re wrong John….if only you had said sooner, there is plenty that can be done”

Sherlock raced down the stairs again, gripped with a sense of urgency. He simply must speak with Mama, and father too, as soon as he could.

~*~

John wasn’t embarrassed to strip in front of strangers, and besides, the servants had likely seen it all before, and he sort of knew that he looked pretty good naked, one or two girls had told him so. The ones he had managed to get on their backs, that is, and they wouldn’t have been doing that at all if they didn’t fancy him a little bit.

He wished he could have shared it with Sherlock though, this bath was more than big enough for two, and it seemed such a waste of hot water and extra work for the servants who had to carry it all up and then down again.

Him and Harry always shared a tin tub by the fire, every Sunday night, and had done since they were babes, except now, instead of getting in together, she went first and he got the tepid, scummy dregs.

He slid into a cocoon of steamy, wet heat, and all his muscles seemed to cry out with relief, easing all his aches, and his stinging, sore feet. Someone had hung a rough flannel on the side, so he used it to scrub his skin until it was pink and glowing and it felt silky smooth.

Sherlock had run off somewhere, and his bath was likely turning cold, but damn, he had smelled so wonderful anyway when John had kissed him outside, like jasmine and fresh rain in springtime. He had half expected a punch and was elated that the boy had kissed him back and more besides. They just had get the chance to do it all again.

John slipped beneath the surface to clean the mud from his hair, and to think about the pretty noises Sherlock had made just for him.

“When you’re done there lad, madam said to go to master Sherlock’s room for some of his old things to wear. Mrs Turner is drying your stuff as fast as she can in front of the fire, but it might not be ready in time…it’s just next door but one” the young maid smiled shyly from the doorway as he broke the surface again and swiped the water from his eyes.

He felt suddenly a little shy at the prospect of going to Sherlock’s room wrapped only in a towel to cadge a bunch of outgrown clothes. But if Sherlock had been late to his bath, he would still be in there, naked as the day he was born.

Maybe it wasn’t such a terrible idea after all.

He climbed over the side and rubbed himself dry with a soft, white towel as big as a bedsheet, thankful that he didn’t leave any telltale smears of dirt to show him up as the urchin he was. There was nothing else for it, but to wrap the fluffy folds around himself like a makeshift dress as he padded down the corridor to Sherlock’s door.

John hovered outside on the edge of uncertainty, should he knock and then wait, or just go in?

“I know you’re out there John, the awkward silence is deafening…do just come in”

He should have guessed. This was the boy who knew John had been tracking him on Oxford Street today without even turning around.

He stepped inside and closed the door with a click before crossing the room to perch his arse on the edge of a large four-poster bed.

Sherlock was still in the water, long colt-legs sticking up above the surface, bent at the knee, his elegant neck arched as he leant his head back against the side, long pale fingers curled around the copper rim.

“I’ll find you something when I get out of here…in a minute or so, I expect…oh god this feels marvellous John. It’s strange isn’t it, how one always detests the idea of taking a bath, but then you never want to get out once you’re in?”

“Hmm yeah” John mumbled, trying hard not to picture what was concealed just beneath the surface, “I’ll turn around if you’re ready to jump out now”.

He flipped himself over until he was sitting with his legs tucked beneath him on his knees, facing a pile of huge fluffy pillows at the top of the bed. God, what he wouldn’t give to take one home to mother, one of these would be so much better than the three flat old things she currently had.

He heard the swish and splash of water as Sherlock unfolded himself and stepped over the edge of the tub, so he dug his own nails into the tops of his thighs to quell the overwhelming desire to turn around. But Sherlock didn’t approach the bed where a second towel lay, instead he crossed the room and John heard the lock click.

“John…would you like me to….no-one will come in, I swear…I locked the door”

Sherlock stuttered behind him, so close now that he could feel faint puffs of breath on his naked skin, the towel only covering him from the waist down. Just hearing the sound of that rich, beautiful voice and his cock began to fill out and rise again after he had only just managed to calm his body down.

Oh god, how he wanted to, but he was scared to turn around and see those eyes staring at him again, with awe and wonder.

How could he ever hope to satisfy such a beautiful, perfect creature?

Sherlock rested his hands lightly on John’s shoulders and bent his head down to place a soft, sweet kiss on the back of his neck, right on the place where hair met sensitive skin. He shivered, goose-bumps rising to pepper his flesh.

“What can I do?” Sherlock asked, in a low, tentative voice, that unleashed a twist and curl inside him as if a snake was writhing in his gut.

Propriety be damned, they had to do this, once John went home again, they might not get another chance.

Sherlock’s long, slender arms slid around his body from behind as he stood, John’s back pressed against his naked chest, inhaling the sweet smell of lavender soap coming from his short blond hair. He could feel the slight press of two taught nipples on his shoulder blades, but whether that was from arousal or the air on wet skin, he didn’t know.

“I know what we can do….just stay like that”

John loosened the towel from around his waist and let it drop to the bed. He sat up on his knees and then dropped forward, hands supporting his weight , down on all fours.

“I don’t…I can’t…do that”

“No lad…not buggery…something else…you need a tight space is all…just rub yourself along my arse crack”

“But that’s just me again…what about you?”

“You’ve got them long arms, haven’t you?.....I’m sure you can put them to good use….just try it and see….trust me, you liked it last time Sherlock, didn’t you?”

“Yes….yes I did…alright”

Sherlock moved in close behind him and placed two palms against the cheeks of his arse, slowly drawing them apart, and the John felt the soft press of his long, hot prick, still slippery and wet from the bath.

“Just rock up and down…yeah…like that…good”

Sherlock began to thrust, his cock sliding up and down John’s crack and dragging in the most teasing way right over the sensitive puckered skin of his hole.

Fucking hell, it felt so good. John squirmed beneath him, rocking back in counterpoint to Sherlock’s movements, trying to scratch an unreachable itch that he couldn’t put into words. All that came out was “There…yes…oh god…more Sherlock”

“More of what…?” Sherlock panted above him, his hands gripped tight on John’s hips now, moving faster and smoother because of the release of fluid from his eager cock. John reached behind him and grasped Sherlock’s right wrist, pulling it under his body and guiding it towards his own cock, throbbing and heavy with want between his thighs.

“Just like I did… tug me off Sherlock…yes…that’s it”

Those fingers were every bit as good as he had imagined, stroking up and down his length in perfect synchronicity with every pant and thrust, the sound of skin slapping against skin, balls and thighs making contact with his arse.

He scrunched up his eyes and bit down on his lip to stifle the moans and grunts that Sherlock was forcing up his throat.

“Oh god” He let out a strangled gasp and Sherlock stuttered to a halt. The head of Sherlock’s prick had caught just inside the rim of John’s hole. He had been so relaxed and into it, the entrance had started to loosen up and Sherlock had unwittingly slipped inside, just the tiniest bit.

“John….what should I do?”

“Your prick is wet…so push it in a bit more if you can”

Just a little bit would be okay…. to see what it felt like…to have Sherlock inside him.

Sherlock pressed forward with a guttural moan and breached him fully this time, just the head like John had said, and by god it stung like fire as the skin and muscle stretched wide, so he bore down a little to ease the pressure and that felt even better again.

Sherlock rolled his hips, not moving forward, just undulating around and began to pant again hard, while he sloppily fisted John’s cock.

“Ah…John” he cried out, curling around John’s back as his warm liquid release pulsed into him And John was spilling his load all over the towel draped beneath his legs, tipped over the edge by the thought of Sherlock coming with his cock still in his arse.

“Oh god John…have I just buggered you…did that count?”

“No I don’t think so….maybe…it doesn’t matter anyhow…it’s not as if you can put a baby in my belly doing that”

Sherlock pulled his cock-head out and he felt warm liquid dribble down his thigh, Sherlock’s seed, his body’s evidence of how much he wanted John.

It was the same for him, swept away by this strange, impetuous boy. He pulled him down to the bed and wrapped him in a tight embrace, a tangle of arms and legs.

“I want you to have me Sherlock…I want us to be together like this”

They heard the clang of metal on metal from the room down the hall. Servants draining the water from john’s bath, which meant they would be knocking on this door soon. It was time to get ready, dress in borrowed clothes and leave this small slice of heaven behind. After all, it had never been meant to last.

~*~

“Sherlock come down at once, and please bring your young friend” Mama called from the foot of the stairs.

They dragged their feet as they descended the steps, each as reluctant as the other to let these last precious moments of solitude go, the rest of the world intruding on their secret idyll.

Father sat in the study in a wing-back chair by the fire, smoking his pipe, looking up with a smile as his youngest son stepped inside the room. But he was not the one with whom father wished to speak.

“John, I believe?”

“Yes sir…have I done something wrong?”

John stood, looking very small and uncomfortable in a pair of Sherlock’s breeches, turned up at the bottom and a simple white shirt. Sherlock thought he looked breath-taking and quite the young gentleman. There was no reason for him to hang his head like that as if he wasn’t every bit as good as anyone else here.

“No my boy, it is quite the contrary from what I’ve heard. I wish to speak with you on another matter, which could be of some urgency, I hear. How is your mother boy?, my lady wife seems to be under the impression that she is quite ill”

“Yes sir…her lungs I think… a pneumonia, for about a month or so now…London’s not good for her at this time of year, but it’s been worse this time…she hasn’t been getting any better….coughing up all sorts of shit…oh…sorry sir”

“Well I must say you had a small stroke of luck when you met my son today, let me introduce myself, I’m Doctor William Holmes, Physician, of Harley Street”

“Oh sir…I can’t afford no fancy doctor’s”

“Nonsense, consider this payment for services rendered, namely preventing this young idiot here from killing himself….come now, the carriage is waiting, I’ll wait for you both outside”

He swept out of the room, leaving an awkward silence between them. John turned to him with a sigh.

“Did you do this?”

“I might have let mama know that father was needed at home…we can help you John, please let us do it…for all three of you” he wouldn’t be sorry for this, John must understand.

“I can’t pay you back”

“Father would never ask you to…it’s fine…truly, it is”

“Why would you want to help us like this?”

"Because you’re my John, that’s all…how could I not?”

The ride back was tense and a little sad, even though father had offered his help John was still leaving, and he didn’t know if he would even see him again. The driver looked a little anxious when John told him the address, the neighbourhood they were heading towards was rough and it would be a risk to take such a fine carriage there. But father scoffed at his concerns and told him to carry on regardless, he would not dump John in the middle of London, and it was imperative that they take him right to his door.

So the carriage trotted on over dirty cobbled roads which grew ever shabbier the further they went, until John gave the signal as they reached his street, a row of dilapidated back-to backs, with missing tiles and broken windows completing the picture of destitution and despair.

A few curious, dirty faces peered out at them as they climbed down from the carriage, father with his bag in hand, every inch the imposing and eminent Physician. The driver sat nervously waiting, wary of the dirty and curious urchins gathered around, inching forward to see the fine horse and the posh gentleman. They were the curiosities here, in this place that Christmas had failed to touch.

Mrs Watson lay on a low saggy bed pushed against one wall of the tiny front room. She was sleeping, her chest moving up and down fitfully with each shallow wheezing breath. John was white, his face pinched with hurt and fear as Dr Holmes bent over her, touching a hand to her brow to check for fever, and taking out a stethoscope to listen to the noises in her chest.

“My boy” he said, after what seemed like hours to Sherlock,” you have done well, her chest is congested, but I do not believe there is any fluid on the lungs. Rest, good food and fresh air will see her right…no need to look so fearful then” he smiled, and Sherlock heaved a sigh of relief, if his father said she would recover, then that was the truth.

“Who is your landlord John”

“Mr Magnusson sir”

“I see….”

William Holmes pursed his lips in thought, staring around the shabby house with a dark and dangerous look in his eye.

“I know of him…a man of business, with his finger in too many pies to count, most of them rotten it would seem. You will not stay here…I shall not allow it, a number of positions have become available on my household staff….does your mother sew perhaps?”

“She’s a milliner by trade sir”

“Excellent, just the thing, Sherlock’s mother will bankrupt me for certain with the amount of new bonnets she buys every year, this will work out splendidly for her…and your sister….does she know her letters?”

“Yes sir…I taught her myself, even though some people say girls don’t need to learn that stuff”

“And you my lad, I was thinking about an apprentice in time as neither of my sons have shown the least inclination for the life of a lowly doctor…but not as yet, you have to complete your education first….. I have some sway with the Board of Governors at Sherlock’s boarding school, I would like to sponsor you, and we may be able to enrol you in time to start back with Sherlock after the New Year”

Sherlock was reeling, his father was asking John to move in with them, his mother as a member of the household staff when she was well, and an education for Harry and John too. And after Christmas, school, together, what more could either of them want?

Sherlock’s heart was beating out of his chest as he waited for John to give his consent. His mother was awake now and listened to every word, blinking up at her son as tears of joy ran down her face.

“Yes to all of it sir….and thank you from the bottom of my heart….but I didn’t save Sherlock’s life today…he saved mine”


	5. Merry Fucking Christmas Sherlock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the Christmas dance at school tonight and Irene challenges Sherlock to a game - kiss the object of his fantasies under the mistletoe. (Teenlock)
> 
> (This is an odd one because I've only ever written in the 3rd person before - but I got strangely attached to this little fic, so I decided to post it in all it's ropey glory anyway)

“We should crash the school Christmas dance”

“NO”

Sherlock sprawls across the bed and hangs his head over the side.

He feels the pressure as the blood rushes south and fills his skull.

It feels good. His ears pound.

Irene pouts as she lies beside him in her underwear. She kicks her long legs up into the air and holds them there in a shoulder- stand on the bed, wiggling her perfectly painted toes.

“You hate Christmas” he says, “I thought this was more your type of fun”

Irene flops back down again and shrugs “I think I’ve had enough of this for tonight darling…and so have you…you’re poor little arse is positively raw”

Sherlock sighs, because he knows it is never enough. It helps though, Irene’s games. An experiment of sorts, in the spirit of scientific endeavour.( It’s not as if either of them get any sexual gratification out of this). She likes girls and he likes boys, presenting the ultimate test to her skills…. How many times and in how many ways can she get him hard and make him come. Three times tonight, the crop, a good fingering and a blow-job.

She really is rather good at this, Sherlock thinks, it could provide a very lucrative career path for an independent-minded girl like Irene.

She knows he cheats, of course. Is it cheating though?

Perhaps….but Sherlock doesn’t really care.

“Who did you dream about this time?”, she asks, “No, don’t tell me…let me guess” she flips over onto her belly and furrows her brow in concentration.

There will be no end of trouble when she finally works this one out.

Sherlock rolls his eyes.

“What would it matter anyway?, it’s just a mind-trick to help me get off….because obviously you’re not enough”

He throws in the barb for the hell of it, just because he can, because he is safe here with Irene and she doesn’t care how sarcastic he is.

The only place in the world where he doesn’t have to watch his mouth.

Sherlock finds it quite liberating.

Irene ignores this, she knows he is just trying to make her forget about the stupid Christmas dance.

“How about this then” she smiles “A new game…I want to see you kiss the object of your fantasies…tonight…because he will be there…that’s why you’re so reluctant to go, am I right?”

Sherlock sighs and sits up on the bed. He waits for a minute for the bright white lights to stop popping in front of his eyes before he leans down to pick up a crumpled ‘The Cure’ t-shirt and a pair of artfully ripped black jeans.

“Oh what a shame …..I haven’t got a thing to wear” he pulls them on anyway and stands up, staring at his reflection in the bedroom mirror.

Sherlock thinks he looks emaciated, but it could just be a trick of the light, can’t imagine what anyone would find attractive here.

He walks across to her desk, completely devoid of anything school-related and picks up his jacket and keys.

“I we must go, can we go now, before I change my mind?”

He hates it when she wins. So he tells her.

“I hate you Irene”

“No you don’t Sherlock”

“Mores the pity you evil cow”

Irene leaps up, already twisting her long dark hair into a neat roll with one hand.

Sherlock opens her closet and reaches for a dress, any dress, she won’t care which, he pulls out something tight and red and throws it at her in mock irritation

“Hurry up, we haven’t got all night”

“Eager are we? Down boy” she shimmies into the dress and steps into torturous heeled shoes.

“How do I look?”

“Like a common street whore…how about me?”

“Like you’ve just been fucked”

“Perfect….shall we?” he holds out his arm like a gentleman and waits, huffing with impatience as she takes the damn shoes off again to walk down the stairs.

It is already gone ten when they leave the house, fashionably late.

They hover outside the gym to share a joint before they go in. A few people give them curious glances and Sherlock glares back. He knows they are an intimidating (and dysfunctional) pair, the rebellious eccentric and his ‘fag hag’, neither quite belonging anywhere.

Besides, he ‘likes’ Irene, well, for a given definition of like….he can stand to be around her for more than five minutes at a time.

Irene passes him the joint and he takes a drag, inhales, and holds it there. Sweet oblivion curls around his insides.

He shouldn’t do this anymore, doesn’t like the heaviness that seeps through his body and mind, but tonight he needs….something….just to take the edge off.

The edge off what though? Sherlock thinks he knows.

Once more for luck, he sucks in another deep breath, exhales, as ready as he ever will be.

Sherlock tosses the spent butt end over the wall.

“We should probably go in now”

They walk together, Irene’s careful steps in too-high heels echo loudly down the corridor. This is it.

There he is, the very first person he sees, John Watson, shower-fresh and pristine.

(An hour ago he was riding Sherlock’s cock in his head).

Sherlock wants to fist the front of that perfectly pressed shirt until the sweat from his palms moulds it into a criss-cross of shattered lines…chaos.

He wants to run his hands through that artfully tousled hair and pull until he breaks down in tears.

He wants to do things to that mouth, use it until his pink lips swell.

He wants. Full stop.

Irene follows his line of sight. She laughs. “Oh no Sherlock, you poor dear…John Watson…the clean-cut captain of the football team?”

He hates the tone of pity in her voice, with an unmistakable hint of triumph. She thinks she has already won, that this is an impossible task.

Sherlock watches John across the room. He laughs, and drinks and curls his arm protectively around his girlfriend Mary’s waist.

Sherlock can feel the ghost of those fingers on his skin. He feels sick.

 Being here is harder than he thought.

“I can’t do this, you win, I’m leaving” he says, exactly one hour after they came in.

He doesn’t want to see John kissing Mary on the cheek as he whispers in her ear. Mary walks away and stands beside her friends and John cracks open another beer.

His eyes flick to Sherlock’s as he scans the room and then he looks away.

(leaving you Irene…not just leaving here)

Irene drapes her arms around his neck and kisses him full on the mouth.

“Merry fucking Christmas Sherlock”

She is drunk already, a fondness for alcohol one of her less appealing traits.

Sherlock wrinkles his nose and gently pulls away. He smiles apologetically at a pretty red-head with Irene’s lipstick smeared across her face.

The dutiful friend would stay and hold her hair back while she vomits in the sink in the ladies room, and see that she gets home safe.

Sherlock is not a dutiful friend.

It is cold outside, but Sherlock sits down anyway to smoke that second joint they brought while he waits. Mycroft will smell it on his clothes anyway, so he may as well get completely wasted.

It helps to pass the time.

Sherlock hears the door open and close, a body slides down the wall beside him and a familiar hand reaches out.

“Do you mind if I…..?”

“Not at all” he passes the smouldering joint across and watches the cloying smoke disappear into the night air as John inhales, then breathes out again.

“I thought that fucking torture would never end”

John smiles softly and tips up Sherlock’s chin. He takes another drag and presses their parted lips together, exhaling into Sherlock’s mouth.

Sherlock curls a hand around the back of John’s soft neck, tangling fingers in golden hair, and holds him there. He kisses him deeply, and knows that John _needs_ to be kissed like this.

By him.

“Stop sleeping with Irene”

“Break up with Mary then”

It’s the same argument again and again. Sherlock hates this. They could break this fragile thing they have so easily.

Perhaps they already have.

“This is so fucked-up Sherlock” John sighs.

Sherlock just shrugs, because he knows.

They haven’t planned this, didn’t set out to break anyone’s heart, just got high in the park one night, like this and snuck back to Sherlock’s house for a fuck.

They never really stopped.

Sherlock bites John’s lip and palms him between his legs, just to remind him they only belong to each other now.

“Come on, let’s just get this over with” he stands, one graceful fluid motion even as shit-faced as he is, and holds out a hand, hauling John back onto his feet.

He knows this is selfish, because Irene won’t care, and they don’t feel like that about each other anyway, but he wants John all to himself.

Back in the gym the slow dance starts and couples take to the floor. Mary sways in the centre, wrapped in the arms of the six foot goalie, Bill something-or other, the one that always teases John about being such a short-arse. They pass under the mistletoe and she giggles when he sticks his tongue in her ear.

“I’m sorry John” he says

“No you’re fucking not” John pokes him in the ribs and makes them both laugh.

Sherlock hates this song, but he dances with John anyway when he pulls him out to the middle of the floor, and as they pass under the mistletoe they kiss, with plenty of tongue because John is a little bit drunk and he is more than a bit stoned.

But Sherlock doesn’t give a fuck anymore. He got exactly what he came for.


	6. Bad Santa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John is a grumpy department store Santa and Sherlock is the very distracting new elf.
> 
> (Just lowering the tone a bit with a spot of Christmas smut)

“How did it go?”

It was an innocent enough question. Just a polite enquiry on the events of his day, but the sight of Mike, just sitting there in the same damn position he had been in at nine this morning just made him see red.

Red, he bloody well hated that colour.

“What does it look like genius? It was fucking awful, some little bastard pissed his pants and another one bit my hand.”

John stomped into the staff lounge and threw his bag onto the sofa with an angry growl. It bounced once on the cushion before executing a perfect double somersault onto the floor. The contents spewed out and a half-drunk bottle of cola burst open sending a fountain of sticky spray all over his velvet clad legs.

Jesus Christ! John kicked the bag where it lay and scowled at the sticky brown pool.

“Don’t just sit there Mike, get me something to mop this shit up, a damp cloth or something, it’s not as if you’ve got anything better to do

” Whatever happened to Ho! Ho! Ho!", said Mike, at a safe distance in the tiny kitchenette, washing off a stack of dirty coffee cups in the sink. His face was a mask of studied indifference and it made John want to punch it, very hard.

John wasn’t in the mood for this after such a rotten day at work, so he turned on his heel with army precision and marched swiftly back out of the room. The dramatic exit ruined by a wobbling fake belly stuffed under a red velvet Santa suit.

“You look like an angry garden gnome” Mike called from behind him as he slammed the bathroom door. He opened it again and popped his head out.

“Maybe you should give it a try, smart arse, Sara walked out on the job last night so there’s an opening for a Christmas elf…I dare you”

Mike just blinked at him, and John could just bloody well see the urge to laugh pulling at the corners of his mouth

“Haven’t you heard? There’s a new elf starting tomorrow, that weird looking kid from ‘Home and General’ downstairs has been transferred”

Fuck, that was the last thing he bloody well needed to hear.

Sherlock Holmes was the talk of the department store, the main topic of conversation being that he had sent several children home in tears, and some of the parents too by all accounts. ‘They should just sack the bastard’ John had said, but apparently his brother was on the Board of Director’s so they were bloody well stuck with him. But now apparently, behaving like an arrogant arse got you promoted from ‘Home and Garden’ (for the parents who couldn’t be bothered to walk up the stairs) to Santa’s Christmas Grotto in the Toy Department on the third floor, where he worked.

John hadn’t seen that much of him so far, because he never hung out with the other staff here in the lounge. He probably went swanning off to some posh wine bar for lunch, and pissed daddy’s money against the wall.

John, on the other hand needed this gig, even the daily dose of humiliation hadn’t put him off, so far…

He tried to picture Sherlock in green tights with a little pointy red hat on his head, the standard elf costume this year. The girls just about got away with it, with the little sexy skirt, but the boy-elves just looked like massive prats.

Nah, the six foot bastard was more Lord of the Rings than one of Santa’s little helpers, with those stupid cheekbones and the icy stare. He wondered if Sherlock might be into a spot of Middle Earth cos-play? But if Sherlock was a sexy Elrond he would probably end up as an angry little hairy Hobbit. Nope, not helping either John, he stored that fantasy away for some later date, possibly in the shower, as soon as he got home, with his right hand.

Damn.

~*~

John had to hand it to the kid, he was damn well working that elf costume. He had seen him in the morning in the changing room, cause really, who the hell would walk through London dressed like that? And dammit, those tights left nothing to the imagination, clinging to every little lump and bump (change that to big lumps and bumps) Thank god there were a little pair of candy-striped shorts to go over the top or Santa might have been sporting a little chimney stack of his own.

“Would you stop staring at my arse please Santa?”

“What? Oh sorry…erm….cock…er…Sherlock”

Shit. Get yourself under control, John.

Sherlock just rolled his eyes and continued bending over like _that_ , arranging Christmas parcels in an artistic pyramid for ‘maximum stability’ apparently. That was a disappointment. If some little fucker had knocked them over he might get to see that arse sticking up in the air all over again. He contented himself with a good long stare while Sherlock’s back was turned.

“You do know if I was a woman that would count as sexual harassment?”

“Well get down on your haunches or your knees and stop wiggling the damn thing in my face then”

John was getting testy now, the imminent arrival of hoardes of snotty-nosed kids, and a case of the raging horn had his nerves on edge.

“And why would you want me on my knees Santa?” Sherlock whispered in his ear, making him jump.

When the hell did he get that close?

He flashed John an innocent smile before turning around and flouncing out, the little silver bell on the top of his hat jingling madly as he went.

“Stupid fucking sexy elf costume” John muttered to himself, glad of the rotund, padded belly currently covering the growing bulge in his pants.

In a desperate bid for some modicum of control he sucked in a deep breath and held it there to the count of four. But that went all to shit aswell, puffing back out in a rush as Sherlock walked back in complete with pointy elf ears and rosy red cheeks…. and was that a hint of…lipstick on his mouth?

“Eyes up here Santa” Sherlock growled as John’s eyes raked down from his lips to his chest, where small hard nipples poked through the cheap green polyester, and down again, where a perfectly defined iliac crest was outlined by the thin material.

John flushed redder than Sherlock’s rouged face and arranged his sack instead, filling it with hurriedly wrapped ‘Santa’s special gifts’, a bargain at ten quid a go. It was a job lot of last year’s plastic crap from the sale bins, dusted down and trotted out again as this years ‘must have’. Those parents were such fucking mugs. He was never having kids, working here had put him off the idea for life.

A lady elf drew back the curtain of the grotto, ready to greet the little darlings as they shuffled in, and my god, the store must be making a mint if the length of that queue was anything to go by, winding its way down the centre isle and out the double doors into ‘women’s lingerie’.

Sherlock stood ready at his side to hand out the gifts to the ‘lucky’ girls and boys and John tried desperately not to think that his bloody crotch was just about level with John’s eye-line.

Just don’t turn around…look straight ahead…he would swear to god the bastard kept inching sideways…he was definitely closer than before...

Well, apart from the embarrassing effect the kid had on him in that bloody costume, John didn’t see what all the complaints were about. Sherlock jingled and smiled and handed out gifts and any Santa (Yes I know there’s only one ‘real’ Santa) would be proud to have him as their elf.

John Ho! Ho! Ho’ed! at all the little brats, and winked at the pretty young mum’s too (only the one’s without a ring on their left-hand of course).

“Stop doing that, it makes you look like a creepy old perv” Sherlock hissed in a gap between kids as John pulled some wet-wipes out of his pocket and cleaned the result of an explosive sneeze off the side of his face and arm.

Thank god he’d let Mike drag him off to get his flu jab. This job would be the death of him, if Sherlock in tights didn’t spark off a coronary first.

It was all going far too smoothly, John thought, until sometime close to lunch break it all started to go tits up.

Enter Billy, and his twin sister Faye, two perfect blonde cherubs, about five years old. By this time, John was a seasoned old pro, balancing one on each knee, even though they were a lot bloody heavier than they looked at first.

“Have you been a good girl this year” he turned to Faye first “Yes Santy” she lisped. “And have you been a good little boy?” he turned to Billy too. “Ess Santa…I been very good”.

Their mother beamed proudly at her two perfectly behaved little angels.

Sherlock snorted loudly at his side, which he unconvincingly tried turning into a cough. He raised a questioning eyebrow at John and then turned away, bending to retrieve a Christmas gift.

One gift. Not two.

“Um…we need another one Sherlock?”

“Why…he just told a blatant lie, he hasn’t been good at all”

“Ermm” John’s eyes shifted uncomfortably from the pre-schooler on his knee and his frowning mother by the door.

But Sherlock wasn’t finished apparently, he went on…

“He’s covered in fragments of synthetic blond hair, blunt cut with a pair of kitchen scissors I would think…Billy has given an impromptu haircut to his sisters dolls, the length and texture of the individual hairs indicates more than one. The motif on the little girls’ clothes indicate an affinity with a particular brand of anatomically unrealistic Americanised doll. He is jealous of the attention his  father lavishes on his only daughter and decided to ‘get his own back’, is that the saying?...now how does that fit any given definition of ‘good’?”

John stared open-mouthed as Sherlock held out a present to the little girl, and poor Billy’s lip started to quiver as he was passed over and ignored.

"How dare you!” exclaimed the mother and Sherlock glared at her through narrowed eyes.

“What do you care…they’re not your children…you’re the woman your partner left his wife for, the mistress first, now fiancée. You’re just trying to impress his children with expensive treats and gifts, and their mother would be furious if she knew you had brought them here…individual contact was to be phased in gradually due to the trauma they suffered during the divorce”

The woman was shell-shocked, gaping like a stunned cod-fish while the little boy launched himself across John’s knee in an attempt to physical wrestle the crappy gift from his crying sister’s arms.

“I’m calling the manager, this is outrageous…and if he doesn’t get his gift I want my money back” the woman raged, practically spitting in Sherlock’s face. And he still wouldn’t let it lie.

“You could buy them something much better than this with the twenty pounds anyway…go ahead, report me…I was only telling the truth”

“I’m so sorry madam”, John pulled three parcels from the sack…”here, take two a-piece to make up for any upset this naughty elf may have caused”

She snatched them out of his hands and pulled the two children apart, dragging one by each hand out the door. Quizzical faces peered in through the curtain, wondering what all the fuss had been about.

“Really Sherlock? Was there any bloody need for all that?”

“And you would rather encourage a child to tell lies?”

“That’s not the point, it’s just a bit of fun, you know, something nice…and then you would have to insult the mother too”

“She wasn’t their mother, I already established that point”

John was beginning to see why one department had tossed him already, but why the hell had they dumped the prick on him? He would ask the manager if they could find him a behind-the-scenes, no contact with members of the public role, preferably far away from here.

“I’m sorry Santa….I suppose I’m just a bad boy” Sherlock pouted, looking down at the floor and twisting his hands. He peeped up through long dark lashes and gave a cheeky smirk.

Something deep inside him went ‘doing’. Okay…. maybe he could learn to live with it after all.

“Just stick a lid on it next time smart-arse” he managed, settling himself back into his chair as he prepared for the next onslaught of ankle-biters and their harried parents to scuttle through the door.

By eight o’ clock he was dying to get out of that place, completely exhausted and sweating like a fat- lass in a chip shop in the red Santa suit. Sherlock had managed to behave for the rest of the afternoon, only doing that irritating snort of his twice more, and the murderous looks John shot him were enough to make him shut up, thank god. It was bloody stressful, like constantly chastising a naughty child or holding a grenade in your hand, never sure if, or when, it was going to go off.

And while he looked like he’d been dragged through a hedge, Sherlock looked as perfect as ever, without a single curly hair out of place.

The smug git.

John yawned. Christ, he was getting old, while the other students would be getting ready to go out, he was dreaming of a take-away, then crashing in front of shit tele for the rest of the night.

He wondered what Sherlock planned to do.

“Santa?”

“You don’t have to keep calling me that", he said in irritation, “ my name is actually John”

“I know, but I want to call you Santa ,if you don’t mind….do you?”

Sherlock regarded his dishevelled form with a rather strange gleam in his eye.

“Er no…I guess not…whatever… shakes your boat….I’m just going to shut up now” (oh god, just kill me please)

“Don’t I get to sit on your knee?…I’ve never done … _that_ …before”

Okay, now _that_ was _definitely_ loaded with meaning…or was this just a wind-up?

“Didn’t anyone ever take you….I mean when you were a kid, you know?” he didn’t know where this conversation was going, but it would be less embarrassing to rule the ‘innocent’ explanations out first.

“Of course not…don’t you think there’s something decidedly strange about letting your child sit in the lap of a sweaty old stranger, who conceals his true identity throughout, while spending the rest of the year warning them not to do things like that?”

“Point taken I guess…well put Sherlock”

John turned off the lights in the grotto and fished the keys out of his pocket to lock up. If they didn’t leave soon, someone would come looking and he didn’t exactly trust himself right now.

This had been bubbling under the surface all bloody day after all.

“I, on the other hand am a _very_ big boy, and can look after myself”

Sherlock steered him around and pushed him back down in his chair, his traitorous legs providing no resistance at all.

“So what have you got in your sack for me Santa?”

“That depends if you’ve been bad or good” he squeaked, terrified and turned-on at the same time.

Sherlock looked positively gleeful “Oh Santa…I already think you know what a bad boy I am…so why don’t you show me what the naughty boy’s get?” he swung his leg over and straddled John’s lap.

It took a moment for John to realise that somewhere along the line, the shorts had come off.

“And you’re such a bad Santa…you’ve been staring at my arse all day” he wriggled in John’s lap just to emphasise just whose arse he was talking about. (As if the imagine wasn’t already scorched onto the back of his eyelids anyway).

“Ermm…you want to do this here?” he squirmed uncomfortably eyes flickering to the unlocked door.

“Do what?....Maybe you mean this….” Sherlock breathed softly with his lips just barely touching John’s ear and teasingly flicked his tongue out. And, oh, god the most delicious shiver ran down his body from head to toe.

Was he really supposed to answer that?

“Is that all for me Santa?”

John was embarrassingly hard again, and Sherlock, obviously not in the mood to wait for an answer, rocked his body against him, just once. John could feel the flex of taut muscle as those buttocks clenched and rolled, so he reached out, and pinched with his fingertips at fabric so thin Sherlock may as well be naked for all the modesty it gave.

He could see absolutely everything too. His eyes flicked down to take in the obscene jut of Sherlock’s own erection as it strained through a bare layer of thin green material, pushing against John’s abdomen. But he couldn’t fucking feel it, pressed into the padded stuffing of the fake jolly Santa pudge.

But he could feel something else as Sherlock ground down against John’s thighs with his arse while he let out a soft little moan, writhing like a wanton tart.

Just knowing what this slutty little elf had done was enough to undo the last of his resolve. He gave in, and crushed their mouths together in a bruising kiss. Sherlock smiled against his mouth and parted his soft, full lips, working his tongue inside with evil intent, licking and stroking and orally fucking him until John was helplessly gasping for breath, arms pinned to his sides by Sherlock’s slender hands.

He groaned in frustration as Sherlock continued to tease, stripping off his top-half to expose a long expanse of milky white skin, nipples already hard with lust as he dragged John’s head down to lick them, pulling his hair, hard enough to make John’s eyes water as he sucked at the puckered skin and pulled gently with his teeth. First one then the other until Sherlock was a panting, boneless mess.

“Think you can play games little elf?… then think again” he growled, biting hungrily at the soft white skin of Sherlock’s neck. Sherlock tossed his head back with a broken moan as John marked him up with a pleasing little row of livid purple bruises, placed so high, they would be impossible to cover up.

He pulled away and whispered darkly in his ear “Because when you come to work tomorrow….I’m going to make damn sure everyone will be talking about that slutty little elf that Santa fucked”

It just made Sherlock cling harder and rock faster against him, until he gripped his hips to make him stop.

“Slow down and let me take these off”

Sherlock nodded mutely as John slid his fingers down to the sexy green tights that had been the cause of all this. Sherlock’s frantic rocking had worked him loose, the head of his cock poked up above the waistband, pre-come leaving a growing dark stain and leaving John with no doubt that for most of that day he hadn’t been wearing any pants. (Thank god he had worn the stripy shorts for work).

Together, they pushed the tights down and off, the only thing left now, the little red hat with the silver bell on top, tinkling madly as Sherlock thrust his hips to grind against John’s cock.

“Let me take this off” John moved to unfasten the rotund belly and Sherlock’s hand shot out to stop him

“Leave it on, I like it….please”, so he slouched down in the seat a little and unzipped the pants to pull his erection out, heavy , dark and leaking at the tip, a day’s worth of pent-up sexual frustration, balls so hot and tight they felt like lead weights between his legs. Sherlock raised himself onto his knees, legs still spread and guided John’s hand behind him, coaxing his fingers down between his tight cleft.

Jesus Christ, John’s stomach clenched as his fingers made contact with something smooth and hard, the flared base of a silicone butt plug sitting flush inside Sherlock’s arse.

“Take it out…. then fill me up again Santa”

Sherlock bucked back slightly against his hand, and who was he to argue, with a debauched and naked elf squirming all over his lap?

He rotated and pulled on it gently, working it out of Sherlock’s tight arse, both gasping when it finally popped out, sparkly and green, like a filthy Christmas tree. John wondered just how long Sherlock had had this all planned.

A small tube of lubricant magically appeared in his hand, pressed there by Sherlock who had slipped it into the pocket of the Santa suit this afternoon while bending down. And , fuck, he just had to feel. John lubed up two fingers and teased around Sherlock’s stretched out hole, before slowly sliding them inside, still pleasingly tight and hot, smooth as silk. He practically salivated, imagining that clenching heat around his cock.

But he didn’t have to imagine did he?

Sherlock plucked out a condom from under his hat (Really?), ripped it open and rolled it on, and with a squirt of lube for good measure he steadied John’s cock with one hand and slowly sank down. It took every ounce of willpower not to come, the friction just from Sherlock sliding down sparking sensations so intense his vision was spattered with a galaxy of tiny white stars.

He grasped two bony hips to thrust himself up as best he could while Sherlock rode his cock, thighs flexing as he pumped up and down, John scrabbling for purchase with his boots as his velvet clad arse slipped and slid on the PVC- clad Santa’s throne. Sherlock’s long prick bobbed between them in counterpoint to every thrust as they grunted and panted and mercilessly fucked, plundering Sherlock’s arse like the precious treasure that it was.

He was so close now, could feel a burning in his gut, balls drawn up tight, ready to pop, and Sherlock’s eyes went wide, as he slammed himself over and over, hitting just the right spot. And just as John’s hand reached out to touch his neglected erection, Sherlock came, long ribbons of come spooling out all over the Santa suit, as his tight little hole squeezed and clenched hungrily around John’s cock until he spilled over too, pulsing out warm semen into Sherlock’s arse.

He glanced down at his clothes with an evil grin

“Oh dear, just look at the mess you’ve made all over Santa’s belly elf….clean it up….with your mouth”

The sight of Sherlock bent forward, lapping up his own come was enough to make his cock twitch in interest again even though he was completely shagged-out. He settled for a long sticky kiss before reluctantly pulling out, feeling the trickle of fluid that soaked into his pants. Sherlock groaned and snuggled up against him as John stroked his hands gently up and down his back.

“You know Sherlock, you could have just asked me out”

“Oh where’s the fun in that John?...I got more than just my stocking filled this year….and maybe next time I could be a naughty reindeer….”

“Next time?”

“Oh yes….I’ll even wear the antlers….” 


	7. Snow Angels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are childhood neighbours and best friends, but when John comes home for the holidays, could it turn into something more?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took my inspiration for this story from a scene in 'The Perk's Of Being A Wallflower' where Charlie plays a game of truth or dare, and if you haven't seen this movie or read the book, I would highly recommend that you repair this heinous oversight immediately - you won't regret it!
> 
> I wrote this to remind myself I can do sweet and fluffy sometimes - even if it's still all about the D though.

“The Watson boy…John, he’s having a Christmas Party Sherlock…you should go”

“And how could I do that when I haven’t been invited Mummy?...There are still some social conventions that even I am unwilling to ignore”

Sherlock wriggled on the floor, in front of the fire, trying to get comfortable again. His neck ached from reading a book while lying on his belly on a thick sheepskin rug, head resting on his propped elbow and legs crossed behind him at the ankles, waving back and forward in the air.

Mummy was in the kitchen making sweet mince pies and gingerbread, two of Sherlock’s favourite Christmas treats, so he stayed close, hoping for a sneaky nibble when her back was turned.

“Oh I’m sure John wouldn’t mind dear, you always seemed to get along, before he went away, that is. I’ll ring Angela if you like, I just saw her yesterday, she was so excited to have both John and Harriet home this year for a real family Christmas, just like we’re going to have dear”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. Yes, marvellous, a week of Mycroft scrutinising his every move, such as casual enquiries as to whether Sherlock had a girlfriend yet and what on earth was he doing with a mini-fridge in his bedroom packed with petri-dishes full of fungal spores. Of course he would also complain constantly of the sheer tedium of his daily existence, and moan about his weight while sneaking seconds of sherry trifle when he thought that everyone else had gone to bed.

But even that was preferable to the utter humiliation of Mummy phoning Angela Watson, John’s mother, to beg an invite on behalf of her socially awkward son.

“Don’t you dare ring” he called in a disgruntled voice from his place on the floor “, I’m not going to anyone’s party, I’d rather stay here”

The truth? He would have given anything to go there and see John again. The last time had been in September when the trees outside in the garden were lush and green. The wind had been blowing quite hard that day, whipping up dust from the driveway that made his eyes sting. John had been hoisting his bags into the back of his old battered car, a Ford Fiesta, dark blue, with faded paintwork and rust spots and a dent in the passenger door where Sherlock had hit it with a pebble shot from a home-made catapult.

John had just winked at him and said “I guess it adds character”, knowing very well that Sherlock had been the one to put it there.

“Don’t get into any trouble while I’m away squirt” he had said, before he drove off, winding down the window to wave until the car rounded the corner at the end of the street. Sherlock had stood for at least ten minutes more, just staring at the tyre marks on the ground where the car had been.

Squirt. Only John Watson could get away with calling him that, but it was a child’s nickname, a brotherly term of endearment that just didn’t fit anymore (if it ever had).

Sherlock had already been taller than John when he left, and since then had grown a least a couple of inches more, and Mummy said his voice was like a sonic boom too, ridiculously low for a sixteen year old boy.

The shrill ring of the telephone sounded from the hall.

“Sherlock, watch those biscuits dear, they’re almost due to come out” Mummy said, trailing a cloud of flour and icing sugar through the house as she bustled through to answer the call.

He snapped his book shut and pushed up from the floor, drawn by the tantalising smell wafting from the closed oven doors. Mealtimes he could take or leave, but he was cursed with an insatiable sweet tooth that at this time of year, Mummy was happy to indulge, just glad that he was eating anything at all.

She popped her head back in just in time to catch him with a mouthful of illicit gingerbread, a mess of brown crumbs peppering his front, he choked and spluttered, guiltily wiping a hand across the back of his mouth.

“I can’t leave you alone for five minutes Sherlock, for goodness sake…the call’s for you actually dear…it’s John”

Mummy smiled affectionately as she held out the phone and mouthed ‘I told you so’ Sherlock scowled and snatched it out of her hand, a little rudely, annoyed at being caught out (he would pay for that later) and retreated to a safe distance to sit on the bottom staircase, back resting against the spindles, feeling inexplicably nervous, thinking that the painful press of solid mahogany digging in to his vertebrae would help him ignore his rapidly beating heart.

“You’re sitting on the stairs aren’t you?” John’s voice spoke into his ear, making it race faster still, “sit against the wall or you’ll hurt yourself Stegosaurus spine” he laughed, and Sherlock didn’t even bother to question how he knew,( John always did), he just shuffled over obediently and settled himself on the opposite side.

“So” John began, “I just got back yesterday (I know, thought Sherlock, I watched you arrive) and I thought it might be cool to get together, invite some of the gang round….”

He sounded a little uncertain in a way Sherlock had never noticed before. Perhaps he was ringing out of politeness, pressure from his mother, and he didn’t really want to include Sherlock after all. John was twenty now, and he probably didn’t want some irritating kid hanging around, pissing off his friends every time he opened his mouth.

“Sherlock?...”

“Er sorry…what?”

“A party at mine tonight…are you gonna come?”

“But I’m not part of the gang…am I?”

“Don’t be an idiot, of course you are….come round at nine, bring a bottle if you can, mum’s gone OTT with snacks and dips so we’re all set on the food front, not that you eat anyway you skinny little bastard…just… it would be good to see you…please come”

His stomach gave a weird swoop. Eating hot gingerbread had not been a very wise move.

“Okay then” he stammered, “ but… I can’t promise about the alcohol”

“Just bring yourself” John laughed again, the uncertainty gone, “ That’s all I want”

Sherlock hung up the phone and sat for a while, twiddling with the aerial. John had asked him to the party and he had said yes, then John had said ‘that’s all I want’ and oh fuck, what the hell was he going to do now?

~*~

“Have you done it? Did you invite him then?”

“Yes…are you happy now?”

John put the phone back in it’s cradle with an irritated thump. It was bad enough that he had called on the landline instead of a text or his mobile, but Sherlock was too smart to think that this was anything other than a set-up.

“I was talking to his mother in Marks and Spencer’s the other day, and apparently the boy hardly ever goes out….”

“You know that’s not true mum, Sherlock is hardly ever in the house”

“You know what I mean John….with friends….a bit of a loner, that one, such a pity, he’s turning into a very good-looking young man, Mrs Jeffries daughter fancies the pants of him, but he won’t even give her the time of day, poor girl”

The news that Sherlock was turning heads had hardly come as a surprise, tall, dark and handsome, a terrible cliché, but in this case, annoyingly true.

John sighed, it was pointless trying to explain the finer points of Sherlock’s personality to his mum, that he was quite happy in his own company, thought the majority of the human race were idiots anyway and had more energy than most people would be able to cope with on a daily basis. And well, as far as Mrs Jeffries daughter was concerned….. he just wasn’t interested in girls, at least John was pretty sure that was the case.

But honestly, he would have preferred to see Sherlock alone, not in the middle of a rowdy group, because he would either retreat into himself or say something inappropriate and quite possibly rude that pissed people off. But his mother had forced his hand, and Sherlock would be pissed at him for making him feel like a tag-along.

“Oh god John…please tell me you haven’t just asked Einstein Von Brainstorm from next door?”

“Fuck off Harry, give the kid a break, neither of us has seen him for months, he might have mellowed out a bit…you never know”

“Yeah, like the week of the year thirteen prom when he outed me in front of mum, remember that John?.... ‘Oh no Mrs Watson, Harriet wouldn’t want to go with David anyway, she prefers girls…didn’t you know?’” she mimicked Sherlock’s plummy voice and condescending tone.

John couldn’t help but snigger at Harry’s indignant face “He just forgets to filter sometimes….you know?” he followed her into the kitchen and began opening cupboard doors.

Might as well start the preparations now or in an hour’s time they would be yelling at each other to get out the damn bathroom. Sherlock had his own ensuite, the lucky sod.

“Yeah well, just keep the little fuck-wit far away from me….or I might just tell everyone that story about the love-bite….”

Harry waggled her eyebrows at him suggestively as she popped a tube of Pringles and began stuffing them, into her mouth.

“Harry don’t” he panicked slightly, he had sworn her to secrecy on that and it would destroy Sherlock, and possibly him, if anyone knew. Last year at Easter, Sherlock had just come right out and asked John to give him one. He knew the theory of course, knew everything about the human body and blood, but he had wanted to know what it felt like when the blood vessels all burst like that under the skin in response to sucking by another human mouth. (He had already tried heated suction cups, but hadn’t been satisfied with the results).

And so, accustomed to weird experiments John had given him a practical demonstration, in his bedroom, when his mum was out, sucking at the juncture of his neck and shoulder raising livid purple marks, and every time he stopped, Sherlock would say, not enough data, another one John, until the room had become unbearably hot.

There had been a few sleepless nights after that, tossing and turning and waking up with his hand shoved down his pants, thinking about how Sherlock’s breathing had gone all shallow and stuttery and how his eyes had flickered closed.

He should’ve said no, and had felt guilty about agreeing to do such a ridiculous thing. Neither of them had discussed it since.

He snatched the tube from Harry’s hand. “That’s not helping, those are for the party”

“Hmm yeah…Paprika…isn’t that Sherlock’s favourite flavour?” she darted out the way, arching her back in an attempt to stop John kicking her up the arse. He caught her lightly on the backside just before she managed to slam the door.

“For goodness sake…do you two ever stop? I thought you would have outgrown all that by now” Angela Watson came in through the back door carrying a basket of dry laundry in her arms. She placed it on the floor and picked up some snack bowls from the counter

“Give those here…I’ll do that so you can go and get ready…because I swear John Watson, you spend more time in front of that mirror these days than your sister does”

He should have been pleased for the extra time, John thought as he jogged up the stairs to his room, he should be relaxed and looking forward to seeing everyone, but he was too distracted, trying to figure out just why the thought of some girl mooning over Sherlock bothered him so much.

Shouldn’t he just be happy that Sherlock was finally growing up?

~*~

Sherlock rejected yet another t-shirt, throwing it in a crumpled heap on the bedroom floor. Useless, awful, every single one. This was so annoying, since when did he care what anyone thought?

He plucked a light blue crew neck out of the drawer and held it up against his chest, peering into the mirror in the hope that this time it would look right (he would settle for okay at a push). The colour picked out his eyes and didn’t make his skin look so deathly white and with dark indigo jeans it might just look alright.

Okay, outfit chosen, now for the hair. Well, there was precious little that could be done there. He ruffled his fingers through his unruly dark curls, wishing it was more manageable like John’s or Mycroft’s was. Amanda Jeffries had called it ‘cute’ yesterday, and twirled some around her finger after backing him up against the garage wall outside his house, so he had pointed out the spots on her nose before wriggling out of her grasp and running up the drive like an idiot.

He was in his bedroom peering out the window to make sure she had gone when John had pulled up in that rust-bucket of a car, so he sat for far too long, like some sort of peeping Tom just watching him carry his bags into the house.

John.

Every time Sherlock thought about him the patch of skin on his neck tingled and goose-bumps covered his arms. But John hadn’t mentioned it since, was probably embarrassed because they had both enjoyed it so much. Sherlock had scuttled out of the bedroom door with a flushed face and his jacket draped over one arm, which conveniently covered his body from the waist down.

Maybe tonight was a mistake, too many people and too many chances to fuck things up. He eyed the brand new bottle of Smirnoff vodka on top of his set of drawers. Mummy had agreed, so long as he didn’t drink too much. No chance of that as Sherlock hated alcohol, it made his brain all foggy and useless as well as tasting appallingly bad. He would just have to mix it with plenty of coke to hide the taste, or Cranberry juice if the Watson’s didn’t have any of that.

Sherlock opened the bedroom window, nerves finally getting the better of him. A cigarette would calm him down a bit, the breeze would carry the smoke away and a shower would scrub the smell off aswell. Sherlock was more worried about John’s disapproval as a medical student than his own parents with the power to ground him for the rest of his natural born life, but he lit up anyway and sucked the disgusting toxic cocktail into his adolescent lungs.

Glorious.

“Sherlock Holmes, have you been smoking?” Mummy thumped on the locked bedroom door,

“Er no… Mr Wilson is burning garden rubbish, it’s just wood-smoke” he hurriedly stubbed it out again on the outside wall, the butt falling out of his hand to the ground below. Shit. he would have to pick that up before somebody found it, Mycroft probably…his brother had an uncanny ability to detect a misdemeanour and there was never any point in denying it, because his parents knew Mycroft was never wrong.

He looked at his watch for the fifth time in the last half hour, it was only eight o’ clock. He would just have to take a very long shower, until his skin turned all pruny and the bathroom was completely steamed-up, and not, under any circumstances, would he think about John.

Generic dance music thumped out from the house as Sherlock stood on the doorstep, undecided whether to just walk in or not. No-one would hear the bell if he rang it, and the Watson’s wouldn’t think he was rude or presumptuous, after all he had spent much of his childhood running around the place with John. But he stood there, nonetheless, not sure what the rules were now, if there were any, that is, finger poised over the button with his left hand, bottle of vodka clasped tightly in his right. He shivered despite his long coat. The weather would decide for him soon anyway, as fat white flakes of snow slowly drifted down, instantly coating the ground around him and settling in his dark curls.

“Hey Sherlock, I didn’t expect to see you here tonight” he jumped a little at the voice, sounding so close behind his back and bristled slightly at the hidden implication there.

Why would he not be expected? Had John expressed some desire to his older friends not to have a mere kid like Sherlock hanging around, too young and naïve for this oh- so sophisticated adult gathering?

Huh, if you could call pizza and beer that.

If any of these self-deprecating thoughts showed on his face Mike gave no indication that they had as he clapped him on the shoulder with a beefy hand. He went to Uni with John, the same year group, same course, and they travelled and even boarded together during term-time. Sherlock envied him that, so much time in John’s company, and wondered if Mike realised how little he deserved the privilege. But at least he was reasonably tolerable and didn’t take the piss too much, so Sherlock was willing to put his envy aside and at least fake a semblance of friendliness.

“John said just go straight in, don’t wait for anyone to answer the door cause he can’t hear shit in there with the crap music Harry put on” Mike laughed and reached by him to open the door, giving him a gentle nudge over the threshold into the cosy hall.

John’s house was smaller than his own, even though they lived next door, the whims and follies of town planners and architects he supposed, or a way to integrate those from different financial and social backgrounds. Whatever the original intention had been for this happy accident of fate, Sherlock knew that he would be eternally grateful. He inhaled deeply, it always smelled so good, like cinnamon and something fruity, like wild berries, rather than citrus. Sherlock dragged in a healthy lungful that was instantly more comforting to him than any cigarette was.

John wandered in at just that moment, as Mike stepped through behind him and closed the door. His breath hitched a little at the sight of him as John stepped forward without a moment’s hesitation and ignoring Mike for a second, he pulled Sherlock into a crushing bear-hug, squashing the cold bottle between them. It left a damp mark from condensation and snow on John’s t-shirt.

“Christ squirt, stop growing for fuck’s sake, this is just embarrassing now” he drew back to look up at Sherlock’s face with a beaming smile, and how could Sherlock ever have imagined that he wouldn’t be welcome here, disgusted at his own rampant insecurity. John was right though, Sherlock towered a good five inches over him now, just the right height for John to fit his golden head right in the crook of Sherlock’s neck.

“Like little and large”

“Large was a fat guy John”

“Oh okay, little and…lanky?...Nah, forget it, it doesn’t have that same ring to it, does it?...I’m talking shite, I don’t know why….just ignore me….sorry…it’s just…god, I just haven’t seen you in so long”

John was babbling a little, like he did when he plucked up the courage to talk to a girl he happened to have his eye on, but that didn’t make sense in this context, they had known each other for most of their lives. Sherlock tried to recall if he had detected the scent of alcohol on John’s breath, that would be one explanation for this bumbling and quite frankly uncharacteristic display of nerves.

“It’s been less than four months John” he said, more softly than he had intended, but noted that John’s and his concepts of ‘a long time’ must differ wildly. Four months had felt like an eternity.

“Yeah, but when you’re away from home, four months feels like a lifetime” John said, exactly as if he had read Sherlock’s mind. He grinned and gave him a playful punch to the top of the arm, possibly because Mike was still hovering close by. How would he have touched him if they had been alone?, he thought.

“Hey, you’ll know all about that soon when you’re off seeing the world Sherlock”

“I’m only applying in London, that’s hardly very far” (as close as I could get to you)

“Good, that’s…good yeah, but not for a couple more years…..hey come in properly, I’m being a shit host tonight…living room…the pizza just got here, grab some quick before Stamford snaffles it all”

Sherlock let himself be steered around, enjoying the feel of John’s hand pressing firmly into the small of his back, fingers splaying out a little to gently stroke with his thumb. Was he even aware that he was doing that, or realised that Sherlock could feel every puff of his warm breath tickling the hairs on the back of his neck?.

The room was half-full of people that Sherlock recognised and some that he had never seen before. It was mercifully dark though, the only light coming from the muted t.v in the corner and numerous strings of Christmas lights strewn over the mantelpiece and wound haphazardly around an artificial Christmas tree. His own mother had spent far longer than any sane person should, consulting interior design magazine for perfectly sourced, eco-friendly decorations. Sherlock was almost too scared to breathe in their presence in case he so much as knocked a single bauble or strand of overpriced tinsel out of place. Mrs Watson was more ‘throw the lot at it preferably from a great height, and see what sticks and he could definitely see the merit in the more relaxed approach.

John prodded and pushed him down on the floor, between the sofa and the coffee table where all the snacks were spread out. He sat, rather stiffly, pow-wow style, legs crossed between Mary, who he knew from school and a boy called Gary, or Greg whom he did not.

Sherlock didn’t really like pizza and it irked him slightly that John had seemed to have forgotten that, but he valiantly plucked a slice from the box and plopped it onto a paper plate. Yuck, heavy, stodgy, dense and thick with greasy cheese and alarmingly synthetic tomato sauce. He poked at his slice and nibbled some crusted mozerella that had flowed over the side as John watched, because the sight of Sherlock eating anything at all was always guaranteed to make him smile.

“Drink?” John asked, clearly satisfied with his pathetic attempt. He nodded , not really paying attention, just glad to shove the plate to one side, so when the cup was placed in his hand, he took an overly large sip. What looked like a perfectly innocent cup of Coke was more than a little slutty, thanks, no doubt to a generous amount of his own vodka. That was definitely more than two fingers worth.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” he winced at the bitter taste, trying desperately not to cough and look like a stupid twelve year old.

“Now ask yourself Sherlock” John smiled casually, looking directly into his eyes “Would I do a thing like that?” he broke into a throaty laugh.

“Yes…I do believe you would” Sherlock countered, batting away the flush of arousal at those words – did he have any idea at all how suggestive and yes, seductive they were? “ I seem to recall Mycroft’s last birthday, where you happened to lace the punch”

“Ha yeah, it would be hilarious to see you puke in his posh bathroom again…although he would probably kill us both”

“Glad to see you’ve given it so much thought”

“Oh, I have…loads…” John trailed off, looking thoughtful, then guarded , impossible for Sherlock to read anymore. John bumped shoulders in a completely matey, platonic way and leapt up.

“Behave then squirt…I’m just going to talk to Molls for a bit…have fun”, and the he was gone, bouncing over to the other side of the room to talk to Molly Hooper who had just wandered in.

Sherlock huffed a little resentfully, picked up his drink and took quite a large gulp, the bitter fluid both warming and stinging his throat on the way down. He could hardly expect John to stick by his side like a limpet all night, he was the host with other guests that weren’t Sherlock to attend to aswell. Molly was studying in a similar field, Pathology, and would have far more in common with John now than he would. It should hardly be news to him, when John had first started University he knew it was only a matter of time before the four year age gap became really telling. Sherlock wondered sadly if John even considered them to be best friends anymore.

The thought of not being John’s number one made him feel hollow inside. John had been there for everything, learnt him to ride his bike without stabilisers and cleaned his cuts and bruises that day when he had inevitably crashed into a bush. He had helped him master swimming with infinite patience even knowing that Sherlock had the natural buoyancy of a ten-ton truck, and he had taught him how to fight after coming home from school with his body battered and bruised. And that meant fighting dirty in John’s book so he always won. Everyone knew to leave him alone after that, especially with a popular sixth former at his back.

But this was just typical, sitting on his own at a fucking party like the saddest bastard in the room.

He glanced around, the warmth from his drink slowly flowing through his body as the world lost its sharp edges, less white noise. His cup was empty so he refilled it from the two-litre bottle by the pizza boxes on the table and added a generous slug of vodka, and then a little more for good measure, determined to silence that nagging voice in his head that wore his mother’s disapproving face.

Sherlock blinked rapidly a few times as the fresh onslaught of alcohol blurred his senses, squinting his eyes to focus on the people who had just arrived. David….somebody…unimportant, insignificant, and Amanda bloody Jeffries…oh god. His head darted from side to side looking for a suitable escape route. It was a party, he was fairly sure he was drunk which almost guaranteed that she would corner him at some point and make a second attempt to stick her tongue down his throat. Only his lightning fast reflexes had saved him last time, and in his current state he no longer be able to rely on those. Maybe he should just cut his losses and go home, or, he could just hope for the best and keep his head down. Sherlock went for option two, not wanting to offend John when he had only been here for half an hour. Jesus, how can you go from zero to pissed in such a short space of time? Inexperience? Unusually low tolerance to alcohol? Probably a bit of both. He was smugly satisfied that John looked annoyed too, disappearing into the kitchen to fetch some more cups, even though Sherlock was sure he didn’t know about the near miss with her lips that had occurred only minutes before John’s car had pulled up in the drive. Interesting, Amanda wasn’t strictly an invitee, just tagging along with David who used to play Sunday League football with John. Not welcome then, but Sherlock knew that John would be much too polite to kick her out.

By ten o’ clock the party was really starting to kick off, even though Sherlock hadn’t moved from his original spot, slowly working his way through three more cups and a variety pack of Pringles, licking the flavour off like he did when he was five years old. Mike stood up on the coffee table, wailing karaoke style into a hairbrush, Harry’s most likely, and John dashed over to drag him down upsetting two drinks and a bowl of mixed nuts all over Greg’s lap.

“So here it is….Merry Christmas, everybodieeee’s having fuuun!....”he croaked before John finally managed to control his flailing arms enough to pull him back down. Sherlock shifted slightly to avoid the puddle of liquid slowly pooling out across the floor.

His abdomen gave a painful twinge and he clenched his thighs together…..oh god… Sherlock needed a piss, badly, from the four cups of vodka and coke he had drunk, but he hardly trusted himself to stand up. The room kept on moving and spinning around him so he put his hands on the floor to balance, but that didn’t help. He eventually got onto his hands and knees and gingerly hauled himself up from the floor.

Shit he really was pissed and his mum would definitely kill him, and John too if she got her hands on him. He could only hope that Mrs Watson wouldn’t mind him crashing on John’s bedroom floor like they had done almost every weekend since he was a child, until John had left school and buggered off to Uni two years ago.

He eventually made it to the bathroom by crawling up the stairs on all fours (undignified but successful) where he sat, forehead pressed against the cold tiles for a minute trying to figure out how zips worked so he could get his stupid dick out and go.

“Sherlock?" John's voice called from the other side of the door, "You okay in there mate, Molls said you looked rat-arsed and she saw you crawling out the door…I thought I’d better check on you….are you good?”

“Mmm….’kay” he groaned, bladder almost at bursting point, and why had he said that?

“Nooo……Johnnn….I _need_ you…think I’m gonna piss myself”

“Oh shit” John shouldered the door, partially blocked by his semi-collapsed form. Sherlock rolled out of the way a little and John flew into the room, almost catapulting himself into the bath in the process. This made Sherlock laugh hysterically, while his head spun like it had when he got off the roller-coaster at Alton Towers.

“Get up you prat…help a bit Jesus Sherlock”

John got in position behind him, hooked his arms under Sherlock’s armpits and physically hoisted him up. God, he was strong, and gorgeous and smelled so good…. He squeezed his eyes tight, unable to think straight anymore.

“S’your fault John Watson….you wanted me pissed so you could steal my virtue…didn’t you?” he slurred, poking a finger into the side of John’s face as he was firmly pushed in the direction of the toilet bowl. The way John’s cheek dimpled around his fingertip made him giggle again.

“Right mate….whatever you say….I’m not staying to watch you get your cock out….I’ll just help you pull your zip down, and here…” he placed one of Sherlock’s unresisting hands in front of him, so that he stood, unsteadily, braced against the wall “and try to aim straight cause mum and Harry’ll go apeshit if you piss on the floor”

John lingered long enough to see that he wasn’t going to collapse on the floor again and then quietly left him to it, shutting the door.

“Mmm” he groaned as at long last he let it all out. Maybe he could have a nap in the bath because Christ, it would be just too embarrassing to go back down now. They would laugh about this tomorrow, John would tease him mercilessly, but for now his cheeks burned with humiliation. John must think he was such a stupid child.

He started a little as someone knocked on the door again, but it was only Greg, who passed him a bottle of water through the bathroom door.

“John said you might be needing this, and to just stay up here for a bit and make sure you drink it before you come down”

Excellent, he had embarrassed himself so much apparently, that John couldn’t even bear to face him, sending a messenger up with a stupid fucking well-meaning bottle of water instead.

“Drink up mate” Greg peered at him through the crack in the door, looking completely unconcerned “We’ve all been there…I actually did piss myself once, walking home one night…all that cold air and wham…wet denim, not good”

Sherlock knew he was only trying to make him feel better but he sincerely wished he would just fuck off, but he nodded weakly in acknowledgement and toed the door shut. Sherlock cracked open the plastic bottle and took a long pull, ice cold, it helped to clear his head a little at least, but that wasn’t really an advantage as he saw with stark clarity what he had just done. He slid back down again, and leant his head back against the wall, legs spread out across the bathroom floor. Just a minute and then he would go down again…maybe. His eyes closed.

Bang! Bang! He startled awake, how long had he been out for?, it could have been minutes or hours for all he knew.

“Come on you lightweight, downstairs, the game is on”

“What the hell are you talking about John?” his voice sounded rough and cracked but at least he wasn’t slurring his words any more. Water helps. He drained the rest of the bottle, tossed it in the bin under the sink and stood up, hands edging up the wall as he tested the ability of his bambi legs to hold him up. Fine. Good.

He cracked open the door. John stood on the other side, beaming warmly, no lingered embarrassment apparent despite what Sherlock had forced him to endure. Helping him go to the loo like a baby for god’s sake.

“Truth or dare…we always play that at Christmas, remember?”

“Er…not really…. We haven’t played that for years have we?”

Sherlock did remember really, but just didn’t want to play, knowing it would be nothing at all like their childhood game, where dares were stuff like do a roll-over on Mycroft’s bed or make the other eat something disgusting like tomato ketchup on a piece of cake or a piece of raw onion, and on one memorable occasion John had dared Sherlock to lick a garden worm, batting it out of his hand at the last minute, just before his tongue had made contact. No-one had suggested anything that disgusting again, or perhaps John had been worried that he would follow through and do whatever he suggested. He probably would have. So in the spirit of self, or rather Sherlock-preservation, they had toned it down after that. But the stakes were bound to be higher here, it was a roomful of adults after all.

Everyone sat in a circle, about ten people in all. Sherlock realised he must have been out of it for longer than he thought if that many people had already gone, the room had been twice as full at least before he left. John started, in a clockwise direction which meant that Sherlock would be last, thank god, and really, everything started out innocent enough. John chose dare, because well, he was John Watson after all and Sherlock wouldn’t have expected anything less, but they were obviously going tame to begin with as Mike dared him to do three consecutive vodka shots. Easy.

Truth, some idiot admitted they had once ‘stolen’ their dad’s car.

Next.

Dare.

Greg had to snog the person on his left, which happened to be Molly who he obviously fancied rotten. She didn’t look too upset either and happily puckered up amid whistles and catcalls from the others.

John shot him a nervous look. What was that for? Sherlock didn’t give himself time to ponder, all too aware that his own turn would soon be coming up, praying that John would be the one to choose whether he went with Truth, or Dare. Because John wouldn’t make him do something awful like kiss a girl, would he?

Mike Stamford did the cinnamon challenge for his dare, choking and coughing out a pungent brown cloud that settled over everyone with ten feet, which pretty much meant all of them. Sherlock could taste the spicy tang in his mouth.

Molly went truth and Mike asked if she had ever cheated on an exam. Boring, predictable, thought Sherlock, of course she hadn’t, an introvert like Molly would display far too many nervous tells, resulting in immediate suspicion due to overwhelming guilt as soon as she walked out of the examination room. He was wrong apparently, must be the vodka killing off his brain cells, as she confessed to sneaking a look at a vocab book during a year five French test, when bending down to retrieve a handkerchief from her bag. Hardly the crime of the century. He yawned, suddenly bone tired.

“Sherlock, you’re up”

He was jolted out of his growing ennui by John, shaking him by the shoulder and making the floor pitch wildly again. He blurted out his choice.

“Dare”

“Okay, can I do this one please?” Sherlock looked up. Harry, when the hell had she come in? John shot her a desperate look and shook his head. Shit, she was going to make him do something dangerous, like playing chicken on the road outside or climbing out onto the roof. He had done both of those before reality kicked in and they realised one of them could be seriously hurt.

“Right Sherl….don’t think about it….I count to three and you kiss whoever you fancy the most….one….two….three…go”

Oh god, the excess alcohol swimming around inside him must have made his faculties short out, because two seconds later the room was bathed in a deathly hush and his lips were pressed against John’s stunned mouth.

Shit. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

He pulled back. “Sorry…erm…I panicked…you were closest, right next to me in fact…I didn’t mean…”

“John raised his hands placatingly, “ Calm down Sherlock, it’s fine, honestly, just a stupid game” he turned to Harry “You cow, I’m going to kill you for that, can’t you see he’s still smashed?”

Harry shrugged “Just giving things a little push Johnny…at least he’s legal now”

“Fuck you”

“Stop it…both of you…just stop…”

Sherlock heard his own strangled voice as he pushed himself up, vaguely aware of the hushed muttering ‘oh shit John’ and ‘fucking hell, wasn’t expecting that, LOL’s” coming from the rest of the people gathered around.

“I’m…going…going home”

The next few minutes were a blur. John tried to stop him with a hand curled around his upper arm, he shrugged him off roughly and stumbled over a tangle of legs and bodies as he fought his way towards the door. The sound of raised voices echoed down the hall as he pulled his coat from the pile on the floor by the staircase and shrugged it on, still with the presence of mind to fish the scarf from his pocket and loop it messily around his neck.

Icy air slapped him in the face as he opened the door, surprised by a small heap of snow that fell inwards and covered his shoes. It was still coming down thick and fast, obscuring the driveway making it impossible to distinguish paving from grass, blowing towards him as he peered out, landing in his eyelashes and making his vision all blurred. Or was that something else? Sherlock didn’t dare examine that any closer, he just had to get away, not home, too many questions, the least of which was ‘how the hell did you get so drunk Sherlock?

He stepped outside, soft shoes sinking into the virgin snow, with absolutely no idea what to do about this mess or where to go.

~*~

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” John hissed at Harry from the relative privacy of the kitchen. He sister glared back at him, irritatingly smug and unrepentant.

“Oh come off it Johnny, it could hardly have come as a surprise, that kid has worshipped at the alter of John Watson for years”

“But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s ….like _that_ ”

“Doesn’t it? He just kissed you in front of a roomful of people…how much more evidence do you want? Or wasn’t the neckfull of hickey’s enough?”

“I told you…that was just one of his mad human body experiments”

“Oh for fuck’s sake John…do you actually believe that? And you were rather too eager to participate as I remember. You only told me cause I saw him sneaking out of your room with his skin all marked up…and did you know he had a goddamn raging erection when he left that afternoon?”

“Yes…I mean no…I don’t know…did he really?”

Oh god, why was he even asking that? Sherlock was his friend, his _best friend_. Yeah he was a little weird and a tiny bit twisted at times, but so was he, and that was why it worked.

Except something had shifted over the past few years hadn’t it?

John had felt it creeping up. Being in the same room as Sherlock made his heart beat out of his chest like he had just run a bloody marathon, and tonight, in the hallway, that familiar scent of strawberries in his hair and that bloody expensive aftershave that John could never pronounce had made John want to do things to him, right then and there, but instead he had called him ‘squirt’ as if Sherlock was still a little kid and not all tall and gorgeous and fucking outright sexy with those razor-sharp cheekbones and the collar turned up on his coat.

And the bathroom….it had taken every ounce of willpower he had to leave that room before he could cop an eyeful of Sherlock’s cock.

Shit. God. The evidence was stacking up. He wanted to shag his best mate, no sense in denying it now.

Harry nodded in satisfaction at his stricken face “Well, I guess I’m going to say it anyway…I told you so”

“What?”

“Would you ever have done anything about it, if I hadn’t just…..you would have let it drift away, you to the army, him to Uni without ever confronting it, wouldn’t you John?”

“I….don’t know…but it’s Sherlock, Harry…how can we be… _that?_ ”

“You can be anything you want to be John….and you’re better with him, and he’s better with you…just go and sort it out….now….go….or I’ll shove you out the door myself…it was tough love I know, for me to do that to you both and I’m sorry if I embarrassed him….will you tell him that?”

“Yeah…right…shit” he moved towards the hall in a daze, fumbling by the coats pegs for his parka with the fur hood and a pair of Wellington boots. Oh no, the party, there was a roomful of people back there. He hesitated, torn between ingrained politeness and the burning need to see Sherlock right now. His friends would understand surely?

John opened the front door, and leaped straight over a drift of snow rising up at an angle against the side of the house, a bundle of nervous energy and anticipation now. It didn’t matter what they thought anyway because Sherlock Holmes would win hands down, every single time.

The first step he took sank him down past his ankles, the fresh snow not yet compacted and dense. John hoped Sherlock had managed to get home quickly, a few paces in this stuff and those canvas shoes he always wore, even in the dead of winter, would be soaking wet. He tried not to dwell too much on the reason why he had bolted from the house to venture back out into the freezing cold. John had been planning to ask him to stay over all along, like they used to, bunking up together and talking all night about rubbish, or whatever experiment Sherlock was working on that week. What if they could still do that, Sherlock stay over for the night? Well apparently they wouldn’t be doing an awful lot of talking this time…probably.

Shit, he had to stop assuming that this was what Sherlock would want. There was a bloody big difference between a quick peck on the lips under pressure and full-blown gay sex after all.

He reached the bottom of the driveway, a deep trail scored through the snow by the drag of his boots as he glanced back over his shoulder to look. Sherlock’s footprints were barely visible now, rapidly extinguished by the relentless snowfall. But the tracks stopped just a few paces ahead and veered off left, away from the Holmes’ house and off to the other end of the street. He hadn’t gone home, the bloody stupid idiot, where the hell was he now? Licking his wounds somewhere probably, to make John feel guilty when he hadn’t immediately followed him out the door. Well it was working the stupid arsehole. Congratulations Sherlock, he definitely felt like a piece of shit now.

There was nothing else for it but to follow, and when he found him, to drag his skinny arse back home, to his house, to warm up and sleep off the vodka after John had kicked all his other friends out. And Harry too, she could bloody well make herself scarce after what she had done. He was still undecided whether to kiss her or kill her, maybe he would do both, depending on how this ‘chat’ with Sherlock turned out.

John reached the bottom of the street and turned towards town, Sherlock’s footprints almost completely obscured now. If he didn’t spot him soon, he would have absolutely zero idea as to which way he had gone. Over the road was a gentle slope of grass, now fully coated in six inches of snow, which led up to the park. There was a bench there where they usually sat in summertime, while Sherlock entertained him, deducing the private lives of all the passers-by. Like which of their neighbours were having affairs, or financial troubles just as if he had video camera evidence from their houses.

John jogged across the road and waded up the bank, sliding slightly, wellington’s not really providing any grip in this sort of weather, not to mention his toes felt like blocks of ice. Sherlock sat, about twenty yards away on the back-rest of the bench with his feet on the seat part, hands clasped in front of him and head bowed, illuminated by the warm yellow light of a street lamp. John heaved a sigh of relief, just thankful to have found him.

Sherlock didn’t even raise his head as John clambered onto the bench next to him, his shorter coat riding up at the back a little so the snow on the back-rest soaked straight through his jeans, wetting his arse. He hitched up a little and yanked it, then sat back down, the wood bending a little under their combined weight.

“So”

Well, it was a start anyway and this was never going to be an easy conversation, admitting to your best friend that you wanted to do all manner of disgusting things to him, and hoping to god that he quite fancied the idea of doing similar things back to you.

“…let me…I should apologise John…an error of judgement on my part”

“No…don’t you dare Sherlock…it wasn’t a mistake, far from it…I’m glad you did that”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really, you arse”

“So…what do we do John?”

“This”

John lunged, and grabbed Sherlock around the waist, tipping them backwards off the bench into a drift of snow. Sherlock grunted and spluttered, splayed out on the ground beside him, snow in his hair and on his face, while John was half buried in a deeper pile, uncomfortably wet as it seeped under his coat.

“What the hell did you do that for…are you mad?”

“Yes….definitely, we both are….look….snow angel…”

He dragged his arms and legs in and out, ploughing through the freezing drift, and giving Sherlock a kick in the shin, signalling him to do the same. They hadn’t done this for years, since he was eleven and Sherlock was seven, when the perfect day was building an igloo together and sliding down the hill at the back of Sherlock’s garden on industrial strength bin bags. Sherlock’s mum soon put the brakes on that, when unable to control speed or direction, they had crashed. He had suffered a split lip and Sherlock a mild concussion when he cracked his head against the garden fence.

“You’re an idiot John Watson…do you know that…” Sherlock huffed, pumping his arms in and out while laughing uncontrollably, because his angel was at least half a foot taller than John’s.

John rolled over towards him and tugged his arm, bringing them face to face on the freezing cold ground, their breath puffing out white, like smoke, disappearing into the night air. Sherlock blinked at him, iridescent blue eyes gleaming in the light, skin dusted with delicate white flakes that sat for an instant before disappearing like magic, absorbed by porcelain skin.

He really did look like an impossible angel, John thought as he slowly leaned forward and touched his lips to Sherlock’s beautiful mouth. The soft little gasp lit a fire inside John as those soft, pink lips parted and invited him inside. No hesitation this time, John swept his tongue around Sherlock’s mouth, kissing him gently at first and then harder as the slender body pressed against him started to respond, pushing down on the back of John’s head and moving his hips a little closer. He didn’t even know if Sherlock had been kissed before, and thrilled to the thought that he could be the first.

The first kiss, the first touch, the first everything, together, John would die if Sherlock said stop now.

“Stop John”

Fuck. He pulled back.

“I thought you were enjoying that”

“I was…I am…but we’re freezing cold and soaking wet…let’s go home”

“To my house? You can sleep over if you want…no pressure…but your mum will kick your arse if you go home drunk”

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t be thick…the impending risk of hypothermia gives me the perfect excuse to take all your fucking clothes off”

“All of them?”

“Yes… We have to get you warm again somehow….will that be a problem?”

“Most definitely not, John”

This time it was Sherlock hauling John to his feet, clasping his outstretched hand and yanking him up, slipping and sliding as his smooth rubber soles scrabbled for purchase on the wet, snowy ground.

“Look John, it’s stopped snowing”

The air was still, around them, the inky black sky dotted with bright pinpricks of light as the infinite stars burst into existence one by one. They stared for a while at the two fallen angels lying on the ground, edges blurred as two became one, frozen in time.

Sherlock and John together.

Always.


	8. It's A Wonderful Life, Sherlock And John!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John are meant for each other, it's written in the stars, but the chance to be together has just slipped by somehow. Can two Christmas Angels make them see just how much they mean to each other?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was inspired Frank Capra's incomparable 'It's A Wonderful Life' starring James Stewart.

**PART ONE – JOHN**

 

“I want you to come straight home after work today John”

“What the hell for? I do have a life you know”

“Oh yeah, I we know all about your amazing life, don’t we? Running around Gotham City with bloody Batman Holmes the noble hero”

“Fuck you Mary”

“Well you did actually and that’s how I ended up carrying your child….and you agreed to all this so stop acting like I’m bloody well holding a gun to your head and get your arse back here….I thought you would be pleased…. Harry’s coming over for dinner”

“Just don’t Mary….how could you…talk about guns, like it’s some sort of joke after….what you did to…Sher…”

“Sherlock yes….funny how his name always crops up….I’ve had it up to here with all this, so I’ll tell you what John….why don’t you go and fuck your former flat-mate, because everyone knows that’s what you really want”

Mary hung up just as John threw his mobile at the wall, clenching his jaw in anger at the sheer, fucking audacity of the woman. Any chance she got to throw Sherlock in his face, she took, even though if it weren’t for him, John would have gladly turned her over to the police, or better still, Mycroft Holmes, months ago, pregnant or not.

He kicked out at his desk chair, forgetting what a solid piece of furniture it was and howled in pain at the pulse of pure agony which radiated up his big toe. The day could hardly get any worse now, he had already had his fingers up several rectums today as it twas the season for an arseful of piles, not to mention changing the dressings on a weeping abcess, a vaginal swab for Chlamydia and administering countless flu jabs because the nurse was on maternity leave and they were woefully understaffed. His head throbbed and his back ached from sitting in a chair most of the day and now this, dinner with his alcoholic sister, her new partner and his psychopathic assassin wife. And for this, he had blown off a dinner invitation at Angelo’s with Sherlock.

How the hell did his life end up like this? And even with the baby on the way, the future, to John, stretched out like a black, cavernous void.

At six o’ clock he pulled out of the car park in Mary’s car, with no clear idea of which way he would go. Left into town, or right, to the suburbs and his pristine marital home? He indicated right. Nope. If he was going to get through this torture tonight, he would definitely need a little help to cope. John indicated left instead, pulling out of the junction and heading straight for the Asda, a hundred yards down the road. Twenty minutes later he was back at the wheel, with a litre bottle of Jack Daniels on the passenger seat, his doctor’s bag wedged in front so it wouldn’t roll off onto the floor. The store had been full to bursting this close to Christmas, people wielding their trolleys like weapons of mass destruction, or Gladiator’s chariots, rampaging around the aisles.

Right, home now.

He turned the key in the ignition and prepared to pull out. It came out of nowhere, sailing down the disabled ramp, a lone trolley hurtled into his path, driven by two little shits, one sitting in the basket and the other hanging off the back, feet raised off the ground. He cursed and swerved, clipping the front edge which sent it spinning like a fairground Waltzer straight into a concrete bollard where it stuttered to a halt, the two kids jumped out, unscathed and ran off while the car careened on, smashing into a low brick wall.

Despite the lack of speed (it was a carpark for god’s sake), the bonnet still crumpled alarmingly, like a cheap tin can, glass tinkling as the passenger side headlight winked out. Bloody great, stupid crappy hatchback. John got out to survey the damage, slamming the door with a growl. If he drove home like that the police would pull him over and that would mean points on his newly minted driving licence, but that would be nothing compared to how Mary was going to react.

There was nothing for it but to park up again, and get the fucking tube home. He would phone the garage when he got back, or not, if Mary insisted on pissing him off through dinner, two could play at the game, and Harry didn’t like her either after all.

He picked up his bag which had fallen on the floor, and the bottle of Jack Daniels winked up at him, firey hot and tempting. The bitter liquid had become a bit of a crutch lately, a finger to unwind after work had become two, then three, then who the hell cares anymore. John cracked open the seal anyway and took a large slug, tucking the bottle into the inner pocket of his coat.

The station was crowded with shoppers and commuters, each vying for space, and slowly, inexorably John was pushed to the platform’s edge. He peered down the track into the darkness, inhaling heat and dirt suffused with a metallic tang. It would be so easy, he thought, to just let go and step off, leave the mess of his life behind. John shivered and took another drink, heedless of the disapproving stares, eyes drawn to a group of boisterous lads, early twenties, pushing and shoving each other, completely oblivious to the people around them. An old man was shouldered in the back and stumbled towards the edge, arms windmilling as John dived, catching him in a firm grip around his chest just as a train thundered past.

“My god, are you alright?” his heart was racing as the two of them tumbled back, John landing on his arse and the old man sitting heavily in his lap, the ignorant gits around them all acting like they hadn’t even seen an old man almost fall to his death on the train tracks.

“I’m fine John”

“Here, this might help with the shock” he pulled the bottle of whiskey from his inside pocket, and was surprised to see that almost a quarter had already gone. But something was bothering him more than that.

“Wait a minute….what did you say? You called me John….do I know you?”

“Oh no lad…but I know you”

A patient from the clinic maybe? The face didn’t ring a bell.

“Well you have my sympathy then, because I’m not a great person to know, not lately anyway…shit, sorry, but sometimes I just wish I’d never been born”

Why the hell had he said that? To a stranger aswell…it was one thing to think it in the darkest corner of his heart, but another level of awkward to blurt it out like that. Christ, he needed to call time on the drinking, or he would end up an alcoholic like Harry.

Harry…shit…dinner with Mary, he had to get home.

“Okay…if that’s what you really want”

“ Excuse me?”

“John Watson doesn’t exist, he was never born”

“Look mate I’m a doctor, and I think you might be suffering from some sort of stress reaction, because really, you’re not making a whole lot of sense right now…is there someone I could call? Wife? Family?”

“Bless you John…my wife has…almost…passed on….come, let me show you”

“What?...No…I have to get home, I’ll get you seen to, then I’m having dinner with my sister and her new girlfriend (forget the homicidal wife – too much information)”

“Are you sure?...you believe that the world would have been a better place without John Watson…wouldn’t you like to see if you’re right?”

It must have been the whiskey, because there was no other possible explanation for what happened next. They were standing in front of his…no…Mary’s house and John had absolutely no recollection of how they got there. Maybe the tube ride had been so bloody awful he had just erased it from his memory. His key wouldn’t turn, John rattled it in the lock, frustration and temper growing. The locked clicked on the other side and the door opened a crack.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Isaac…sorry mate…my key wouldn’t fit…has Mary had someone out to change the locks? We had a bit of a row earlier and….”

“Fuck off”

“What?” “I said fuck off….I don’t know who the hell Mary is and I’ve never seen you in my life…are you on drugs or something?” he sniffed the air, “Get lost you sad old drunk”

“Well that’s rich…I stormed a crack den in June looking for you, you little fucker”

“The hell you did granddad…now get lost before I call the police”

John stumbled back, startled by the hand that shoved him in the chest as the door slammed shut in his face.

“That’s my fucking house…what the hell…Mary!...MARY” he shouted up at the bedroom window, the bitch was probably watching him and laughing her arse off.

“He’s right, there is no Doctor and Mrs Watson living here…Mary Morstan on the other hand, is a career assassin, solely responsible for eleven deaths in the past eighteen months, currently residing in Paris awaiting her next assignment from a Mr Moriarty…I do believe you’ve heard of him…. my boss is very pissed off with her, I can tell you”

John spun around “Why the fuck are you still here talking shite?”

“Eleven people that would have lived, had you been alive, but there was no John Watson to marry her, you see?”

The old man sighed, “maybe this will convince you John, of just how much this world needs you”…..

The street faded out, the dim light of early evening giving way to the dull steel-grey of a typical winter’s day, the sky an endless expanse of cloud which made colours more muted and washed-out. A churchyard. A field of silent stone sentinels, each guarding their bony treasure. John took in the man beside him, really looking this time, for some hint of familiarity, a spark of recognition. The fleeting thought occurred that this could be Mycroft, or someone of that ilk, it wouldn’t be the first time he had been plucked from the streets and drugged , used as a pawn in a much bigger game.

A name would help. He couldn’t continue to mentally call him ‘the old man’.

“Walter”

“What?”

“You were wondering what to call me, in your head….I’ll save you the trouble of asking, my friend, my name is Walter”

“Okay…for starter’s I’m not ‘your friend’” John rubbed at his temples, aware of a faint throb from an excess of whiskey, slowly starting to make itself known. As first meetings went, this ranked as one of the strangest, discounting the obvious of course, because someone had already picked apart his life without even knowing him, and once was enough. “You read minds too, well done mate, or are you going to tell me it’s just a magic trick? If so, it’s not very original, someone’s tried that on me before”

“Yes, indeed, they did…or might have”

John grunted, determined not to be drawn in, so they walked on in silence instead, until Walter came to a halt right next to a black granite headstone, no more than ten years old. It was smaller than the one that Sherlock had had, after ‘the fall’, but even so his heart skipped a beat just at the thought. Sherlock’s headstone had been removed a while back of course, before it could be turned into some sort of macabre shrine by the more unsavoury factions of his fan club.

He focused on the name, carved into the stone.

“Oh my god….no….that’s sick…it’s not fucking true” his knees buckled and a wave of nausea rolled up from the pit of his stomach, filling his mouth with a bitter bile. He spat out onto the grass and staggered, vaguely aware of a surprisingly strong pair of arms holding him up, wedged underneath his armpit, to avoid the otherwise inevitable descent onto the damp muddy ground.

Harriet Watson

Beloved Daughter

Always In Our Hearts

(1971-2004)

Ten years ago.

“Is this some sort of sick joke? Because this is so far from fucking funny…my sister isn’t dead, because believe me, if she was, I would be the first to know”

John was shaking slightly, tremors running up from his quivering knees to his fingertips. His teeth were chattering too, but not from the cold, more akin to a state of shock. If the man standing next to him hadn’t been so old, John would have punched him by now.

Walter gazed at him thoughtfully, weighing his next words.

“Harriet Watson was an alcoholic who died at the age of thirty three from irreparable liver damage, after spending the previous five years living in various hostels and homeless shelters. She never had a brother called John to tell her when to stop, to say ‘enough is enough’, to care for her when the demons came calling. An only child, a string of unsuccessful and abusive relationships, alcohol was her crutch…but you already know that part…it would be the same in any universe….some things are just inevitable….you see John?"

“No…I don’t want to see…not this…god” he shook his head as he crouched down on the ground, tracing the words with his fingertips, the stone cold and irrefutably solid under his touch. It felt so real, how could it be real? “I don’t know how the hell you got me here, or what this is…but take me back…I’ve seen enough…take me back now”

Walter stared up into the endless white sky, frowned and shook his head. “No….I’m afraid we need to make a couple more trips”

“What?....so you….and whoever’s behind all this can torture me a bit more as part of some sick game?”

“Oh this is no game John, this is life as it would have turned out had you never been around. Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of just how important we are, how much we give and are given in return”

The voice came from far away, niggling at the edges of his consciousness as the world faded around him again, the cold, dank graveyard giving way to a bright, searingly hot summer sun. Sweat dripped down his forehead into his eyes and he brushed it away, holding a hand to his face to shield it from the glare. John looked down to unzip his thick winter coat and found it already gone, replaced by lightweight khaki’s and a worn beige t-shirt, eliciting bitter memories of the not too distant past.

They stood at a roadside, or more apt, a well-worn dirt track as the sun beat down hot and unrelenting, casting a shimmering haze off into the distance obscuring his view of the road ahead. This place was familiar though, it was the main road leading out of the camp. His shoulder twinged in remembrance, of lying, nose flat to the dusty ground as a hail of bullets flew past his head, so close he could feel the heat of them on the side of his face.

His hand moved of its own volition to rub at the faded, lumpy scar tissue and he jerked it away, reflexively when his fingers brushed over smooth, undamaged skin. Now he must be dreaming, drugged or in some sort of trance, because there wasn’t a day went by that his heart didn’t ache at the memory of that day, and the friends he had lost.

“My shoulder…my scar…it’s….”

“Gone?....no John, it was never there, and neither were you”

“I was there for god’s sake…I lived through that and I’ll keep on reliving it to the end of my days….don’t you dare tell me I wasn’t there”

Walter shook his head sadly “John, please try and understand…don’t fight it…this is for your own good…..I’m so sorry, I wish there was an easier, less painful way to do this….”

“What do you mean?......Painful? he was raising his voice now, not out of anger, more out of a need to be heard as his words were swallowed by the drone and whine of a convoy of engines, approaching from the direction of what he remembered as a small town. The first jeep approached, wide tyres kicking up a thick yellow dust as it headed back to base for the remainder of the afternoon.

John heard a click, the sound carrying clear as a bell on overheated air, although in reality the noise from the vehicles should have drowned out the innocuous sound. Every sense was on high alert, the seasoned soldier within, sensing something about to go badly wrong. Then reality exploded into heat and noise as he was thrown across the ground by the force of a massive blast, the lead jeep engulfed in flames as chunks of distorted metal thumped down around him in the sand. Black smoke billowed up, the stench of burning rubber and diesel thick in the air. But the worst sound was the screams and cries of the injured men. He rushed forward, hands and feet scrabbling for purchase in the parched ground, struggling up the slope where he had been shielded from the worst of the blast, desperately trying to climb back to the road. The jeep behind was also aflame, ignited by burning shards of wreckage which had catapulted through the air. It was here that the injured lay, pulled out of the blazing vehicle by two men in the car behind.

“I’m a doctor….Jesus Christ….I’m a doctor….Captain John Watson, fifth Northumberland fusiliers…I can help….please”

He crested the slope and barrelled towards them, hands held up, knowing that any stranger in this barren land would be treated as suspicious until proved otherwise. It wouldn’t do to take a chance and risk being shot again. My god, it’s Bill, he thought, Bill Murray, my second in command. Bill extracted a knife from a sheath strapped to his calf and split the material of the lightweight fatigues that were soaked through with blood. A young lad, early twenties lay semi-conscious with his head propped up against a filthy kit bag. Even from a few metres away, John could see it wasn’t good as the ground turned dark around the prone form, as blood pumped from a gash in his thigh. The boy was bleeding out, only a few hundred yards from camp.

Voices all around him, bodies rushing by, but not a single one acknowledged his presence as he stood there, helplessly watching yet another senseless death. Fear prickled at the edges of his mind, instinct screaming at him to take cover. One explosion, one land mine for a convoy of vehicles, it was a distraction, a prelude to the main event. Insurgents, streaming over the rise to his left, rifles pointed at the group of survivors huddled in small clusters along the stretch of road, outnumbered by the enemy by at least three to one. A volley of shots rent the air. John hit the ground, instinct taking over as gunfire rained out over his head, then eerie silence, infinitely more deafening than what had come before, as the dust clouds cleared displaying the scene of carnage in all its hideous glory. Walter stood beside him on the road, a warm calming hand pressed lightly to his shoulder as his stomach heaved and he coughed up a stream of acrid bile.

“They didn’t see me did they?.....They didn’t know I was there…..”

“Captain William Murray and fourteen men lost….the survivors of the land mine explosion were gunned down in a savage attack. Captain Murray was eager to get back to camp and failed to issue the order for a routine sweep, despite reports of insurgent activity in the immediate area. Captain John Watson would never have made such an error and put his men’s lives at risk, but in this reality, he didn’t exist”

“Are you done?” the words forced themselves out of his parched and stinging throat in a ragged gasp. “Why wouldn’t you let me help? How did Isaac Whitney see me….. but not Bill?”

“Ah, it’s a bit….technical…suffice to say Isaac was in your immediate present and this is a version of the past….it’s time to go now John, there’s nothing more to be done here…."

Walter held out a pale wrinkled hand. The world began to spin before his eyes, a kaleidoscope of colour rushing by, stretched and distorted. His stomach roiled again with the overwhelming sensation like being squeezed and then turned inside out and squeezed again. He landed, panting and disoriented on an achingly familiar road.

Baker Street.

Home.

As soon as his head stopped spinning enough that the danger of falling had passed, he started forward to the black door across the road.

“Wait”

John froze, not wanting to obey Walter’s voice, but unable to will himself forward. He watched in agonised silence as a black cab pulled up at the kerb and the tall, graceful form of Sherlock Holmes stepped out. He strode purposefully across the pavement causing several pedestrian’s to veer off course in a desperate attempt to avoid a collision, Sherlock oblivious, his eyes fixed only on his destination, 221B. If John had been there, he would be the one issuing muttered apologies for his friends’ appalling lack of consideration for others.

“I don’t understand” he turned to the man at his side “it’s just Sherlock, same as always….so why are we here?”

“The same? Really? What is the date John?”

He frowned, and squinted at the display on his watch, but that was no help, it still gave the date as December eighteenth, today. Apparently, weird time-bending travel didn’t affect a Sekonda watch. The newsagents shop three doors away was still open despite the obviously late hour. John knew it usually shut around ten on a week day, so it must be earlier than that. A stack of newspaper’s, tied up on the step outside drew his eye, so he wandered nonchalantly by, peering at the date on the top right-hand side as he passed. January the tenth, and going by the year, it was a week before he and Sherlock had met. His stomach lurched again and he squeezed his eyes shut, opening them again as a familiar baritone assaulted his eardrums. Sherlock was standing in the middle of the living room, shouting down the phone at someone while Mrs Hudson hovered nervously by the kitchen door.

“What does that matter Lestrade….I explained how the paint on the victim’s clothes could only have come from the warehouse on Maxwell Farm Road….unreliable?....what do you mean inadmissible? Anderson could have searched until next year and he wouldn’t have come up with that……listen Lestrade….you either take my word or…..well on your head be it…..your ‘team’ are a bunch of fucking imbeciles” he stabbed at the screen and threw the phone across the room, where it knocked a stack of papers from the desk onto the floor.

Christ, if Sherlock was swearing it must be bad….hell, if he had resorted to shouting at Lestrade, the only one apart from himself who could instill in Sherlock, some sense of calm.

“Sherlock dear….” Mrs Hudson stuttered meekly from her place by the kitchen door, I hate to ask my love but have you found anyone to share the flat yet?”

Sherlock ignored her, flopping down on the sofa and pushing off a pile of old newspapers with his toes, before curling up in a foetal position, facing the wall. Classic Sherlock sulking pose. Some things never changed, no matter what version of reality you found yourself in. John smiled fondly, pushing aside the usual frustration he felt whenever Sherlock regressed into a petulant child. Mrs Hudson gave a long suffering sigh, knowing she wouldn’t get another word out of him, not when he was in a strop like this. The door clicked shut.

John sat down in his chair, and Walter took the chair across, Sherlock’s. There was no sense in standing when there was no telling if the git would just lie like that for hours. John remembered when he had sprawled there for almost forty-eight hours, the only evidence of life were the empty coffee cups and crusts of toast that he had put there on his way out to work and afterwards when he popped back in to get changed before going for drinks down the pub with Mike Stamford.

An hour clicked by and the figure on the sofa stirred, stretching out first, long legs reaching out over the side before swinging round and coming to rest on the old, pitted floorboards. Sherlock sighed and scrubbed his hands through his unruly hair. He looked tired, worn, not like the Sherlock that John knew at all. Sherlock pushed up from the sofa and dragged his heels along the corridor to his bedroom. John followed, glad that the invisible barrier of the past kept him hidden from sight as the door opened and they both entered the room.

Sherlock stopped dead, eyes darting back and forward, turning his head to look around slowly as John stood paralysed a metre behind him. Piercing eyes glared right through him, flickering up and down as if he knew John was there, could sense another presence in the room. Sherlock frowned and sniffed at the air, and John stiffened and held his breath. Sherlock was close enough to touch now, every freckle on his skin standing out like splatters of paint on a pure white canvas, and John could see it now, the difference, a deep purple smudge under each cat-like eye, expensive white shirt doing nothing to conceal the jut of his collar bone and the shadow of exposed ribs. He undressed, trousers dropped to the floor, to be kicked across the room in the general direction of the laundry basket. The shirt came next and John sucked in a breath at the sight of a patchwork of purple, green and yellow, the aftermath of one hell of a kicking by god knows who. He looked so frail in just his pants, young, vulnerable, nothing like the acid-tongued one-man apocalypse John had come to know and love.

Sherlock perched on the side of the bed, hands fisting the covers at his sides, he inhaled, shakily, before bending at the waist and reaching down to prise up one of the floorboards. A small wooden box nestled inside, expensive, walnut, but scratched and pitted with age and ill-use, and his hand clamped around it dropping it on the bed beside him before shoving the wooden board back into position with his foot. John turned his back, breath coming out in ragged gasps. He didn’t want to see what happened next, could imagine it only too well after his trip to that stinking crack den in June. He raised his hands to his ears to block out the soft, contented sigh.

“This is Sherlock without John”

“No….you’re wrong…..he’s better than that, stronger”

“Is he?”

“Tell me then….what happens….how does it end….because I can’t stand here and watch him do that to himself….because I….I…no, this is too much”

“One night, just like this, not tonight, but soon, a woman will die, because Detective Inspector Lestrade is forced to suspend Sherlock Holmes after repeatedly turning up at crime scene’s high on cocaine and heroin. A vital lead is lost. Sherlock blames himself, internalising the pain, he gets worse. He never meets John Watson, there was no-one there to save him from himself”

John shook his head and bent over at the waist, gripping his knees as he gasped for breath.

“I take it back…change it back please….I’ll take everything, getting shot in Afghanistan…all the rows with Harry….Mary….everything….just not him….please….I can’t let that happen to him” he was pleading now, the sound of Sherlock’s rapid shallow breaths as he lay passed-out on the bed echoed in his ears.

“Do you understand now, how important you are, you saved so many lives John, the world needs you, but this man, Sherlock Holmes, needs you most of all”

 

**PART TWO – SHERLOCK**

 

Sherlock shoved his hands deep into his pockets, clenching his fingers against the cold. It wasn’t like him to forget his gloves on a day like this and he missed the touch of soft black leather against his skin. His knuckles knocked against the hard outline of his phone, and he drew it out, even though it hadn’t made a sound all day, obstinately silent, no word from Lestrade yet on the new development in the Cromwell Court theft case. No word from John either. He had slipped back into the domestic routine so easily, only accompanying him to crime scene’s a couple of nights a week, and always at the clinic during the day, making up for the time spent nursing him after the shooting in June. Mary had a hand in this too, he knew that, had anticipated this exact scenario, John slipping out of his life and into a new one as husband and father-to-be while Sherlock and solving crimes faded into the background.

He thumbed the screen and tapped out a line

_Dinner tonight? – Angelo’s - SH_

It was ten minutes before the reply came through as Sherlock mentally counted the seconds, telling himself that this….distance…was what they both wanted now, that John had other priorities than replying to his texts in under two minutes and it was useless to wish they could turn the clock back. John didn’t need him anymore, if he ever really had.

_Sorry, Harry coming for dinner, some other time? – JW_

His heart sank as he read the expected reply, and turned around again as he reached the end of Baker Street, with a new destination in mind.

Fifteen minutes and a taxi ride later he stood outside a run- down old pet shop in one of the less salubrious parts of town waiting for a contact from the not too distant past. Sherlock was not too proud to admit (at least to himself, if not to others – most importantly John) that from time to time he still needed this and if Mycroft, or any other of his close acquaintances (he was still loath to call them friends) had any suspicions, they never said (not that he would have stopped anyway – it was his life after all). This felt too exposed however, out on the street, however quiet it appeared to be, and Sherlock knew from bitter experience that one should assume that watchful eyes were everywhere. He stepped into the alleyway on his right, which still afforded a full view of the street as well as providing shelter from the increasingly icy breeze.

He took a moment to really consider what had brought him here – his own base desires, true, but some distinctly more bitter lay underneath it all. John Watson, stalwart and loyal had suffered nought but trouble since the day he had agreed to look at a flat with a mad stranger (him) which he had only just met, and almost four years later Sherlock’s toxic presence continued to hurt the man he had come to….love.

And so Sherlock had taken a purposeful step back, to let John move on, only, he forgot that he was doing this for John’s own good from time to time, like tonight, and the dinner invitation to the very place where these troublesome feelings had come about. John would be much better off, in fact everyone would be, if he was no longer around, or better still, had never been around.

The wind increased, invading his filthy little haven, so he pulled his coat in tighter and moved another few paces inside. The sensitive hair at the nape of his neck began to prickle and stand on end. He was no longer alone. Sherlock pressed back into the shadows, concealed behind an old wooden door, propped up against the wall.

“Not a very good hiding place dear…I can see you from here”

“I beg your pardon madam…I wasn’t hiding….well, yes I was, but I have a naturally curious and suspicious personality and this area is noted for the high level of criminal activity at this time of year”

Sherlock had no idea why he was telling her this, an old woman, laden with bags from a recent shopping trip, but something about her calm steady gaze just invited confidence, and the words began spilling from his mouth.

“I know what really brought you here, Sherlock dear”

“Has Mycroft no respect for the legal retirement age either? although I must say, you’re the oldest operative I’ve come across so far…I hope he pays you well”

“I must say you’re quick…much sharper than the other one….although it doesn’t make you any less wrong”

“What on earth do you mean? I have no time for cryptic mind games, either explain who you are and why you are following me or just go”

The woman sighed and looked up at the dark expanse of sky, cocking her head to the side as if listening to some unheard, distant voice. It was unsettling to say the least.

Sherlock considered walking away, it wasn’t as if she could out-pace him on those short, arthritic legs.

“Alright, you’re a tricky one, young man, but here it is….my name is Mabel, and I’m tasked with showing you how wonderful you are, but quite frankly, after less than five minutes in your company I’m beginning to think I got the shitty end of the stick, so to speak, the other one would have been so much easier I imagine…” she trailed off, looking thoughtful “No matter, I picked you, so tuck your scarf in, it might get a little breezy and it would be a terrible shame if you were to accidently choke yourself” she chuckled darkly as the wind whipped around them, kicking up dust and debris which made him squint and place a hand over his face to protect his eyes, pressure squeezed his body and turned him inside out, before releasing him with a pained gasp on his hands and knees on a rain soaked street cordoned off with police tape.

A crime scene.

Sherlock was a man of reason, but also a firm believer in the adage that once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable must be the truth.

“You just moved us through space and time….why, may I ask?”

“There are no flies on you dear are there? To show you the truth of course….how things would have turned out had you never been around”

Oh god, Sherlock rolled his eyes, “couldn’t they have sent someone less annoying….or can’t you just be a disembodied voice or something?…I’m pretty sure it isn’t a requirement that you physically follow me around”

“Less of the sass young man, I’ve but bigger than you across my knee in my time….I’m here to help you, but I’m curious…I expected a ….different reaction from you”

“I am familiar with the ‘Many Worlds Theory, of course, the idea that the universe splits into distinct universes to accommodate each possible outcome”

“A working knowledge of quantum mechanics…I really am impressed Mr Holmes”

“Don’t be… I just hadn’t got round to deleting this nonsense yet…..why here?” he looked around the unfamiliar street, coat flapping dramatically from side to side, it was suburban, bland, completely devoid of distinguishing landmarks or features, that was, until a familiar figure came into view.

Lestrade, a little younger perhaps, but no less grey, ducked under the tape and strode towards him. He stopped, metres away and leaned against a garden gate with a sigh, before pulling out a cigarette and lighting up. A little of the tension drained from his face as he sucked, inhaling the acrid smoke into his lungs and Sherlock’s brain itched with longing at the smell. Lestrade glanced from side to side, a little nervously, Sherlock thought, and he reached into his pocket again, and took out a small silver flask. Drinking on duty. Sherlock struggled to hide his shock and surprise. They may have had their differences over the years, but Lestrade had earned from him a position of the highest regard and respect (not that he would ever tell the man that – it would make him insufferably smug and Sherlock always liked to maintain an aloof distance)

“Smoke breaks over Lestrade…back to work” the irritatingly clipped voice of Sally Donovan echoed across the road. Since when did she have the authority to order Lestrade around like that?

Sherlock sighed “Let me guess, in this reality, Sally Donovan is promoted to Inspector ahead of Greg Lestrade, who currently works under her as Sergeant….but why? He’s ten times the police officer that she could ever hope to be”

“Maybe…once upon a time, but a cheating wife and the financial strain of divorce can take its toll on a man…not to mention the fact that this Lestrade never met his protégé, the young drug-addict Sherlock Holmes. You inspired him from the day that you met and he became your protector and confidante, long before John Watson was ever heard of, despite the fact that you frustrated and exasperated him in equal measure with your unorthodox methods and sharp tongue”

“A policeman who is fond of a drink or two, how unoriginal, pedestrian….how could I possibly have been the one standing between Lestrade and ruin? You’ll have to do better than that I’m afraid”

Sherlock thought he did well to hide the tension in his voice, seeing the man he had come to consider a friend looking so defeated, affected him more than he was willing to admit, even to himself, but Mabel cast him a knowing look

“You care…more than you would ever admit….but enough here, there’s more to show”

Sherlock was prepared this time and at least managed the dignity of remaining upright, the new scene coming into focus much faster than the last. A large stark office, walls painted a deep, shadowy grey and a wide mahogany desk framing a tall-backed, blood-red chair.

“Bring me those documents immediately and get me the Czech ambassador on my private line…I need a word”

Mycroft walked into the room, although waddled might be more appropriate Sherlock thought as he stifled a laugh, taking in his brother’s corpulent frame with an air of undisguised glee. Mycroft had always fought against his more generous bodily proportions, but it seemed that in this reality, that battle had been well and truly lost.

“Nice to see my brother’s love affair with cake is alive and well in this universe” he chuckled.

“You may think it amusing Sherlock, but his guilt and disgust has repercussions beyond what he puts in his mouth. Mycroft is a tyrant, vicious and cruel….”

“Rubbish, my brother is as soft as one of the sponge cakes he so loves underneath those three-piece suits”

“Yes, but that was when he had a little brother called Sherlock who was the apple of his eye and softened his heart”

“Pfftt…are you delusional? Mycroft doesn’t have a heart” he said that with all the conviction of a wayward younger sibling, toed into line on innumerable occasions by the intervention of a spoilsport older brother intent on throwing his (not inconsiderable) weight around.

The familiar drawling tones of the elder Holmes rang out

“Civilian casualties? Ah well” he chuckled darkly “Collateral damage, it simply couldn’t be helped, the order stands…those remaining in the area will be shot on sight, I don’t care who they are”

Mycroft disconnected and calmly examined a sheaf of papers on his desk as if he hadn’t just ordered what amounted to a massacre. Sherlock was appalled. This was so far beyond the brother that he knew and….loved? He shuddered at the thought that he, of all people would succumb to sentimental feelings regarding that fat, annoying oaf.

“You give Mycroft his humanity ” Mabel placed a soft hand on his arm “…didn’t you know that? Without it he is a truly terrible creature, wielding much the same power, but without his heart…his baby brother Sherlock”

The large office felt suddenly cramped and hot.

“I need air” he croaked.

“As you wish, my love”

A cool breeze blew across his face and he drew in greedy lungfulls of the refreshing air, tinged with the smell of London traffic and a hint of Chinese takeaway.

Baker Street.

“I take it we’re here to witness the fate of Mrs Hudson then?” he said.

“Not exactly dear…Don’t run ahead of yourself, we’ll get to that”

They stood on the pavement and looked up, gazing at the windows of the familiar, homely comfort of the Baker Street flat. The first clue that something was not as it should be came from the blackened bricks around the newly replaced window frames, scarring the beautiful Victorian façade.

“A fire…when?”

“About two weeks ago now”

“Was she hurt….tell me please”, he pleaded, with a note of desperation, because the thought of any harm befalling Mrs Hudson would hurt just as much in any universe.

“Mr Chattergee and his family all escaped, unhurt, the fire started in the shop below, faulty wiring, electrical, Mrs Turner, next door raised the alarm, she’s a light sleeper and had gone downstairs for a nightcap in the early hours”

“To hell with Mrs Turner and the bloody Chattergee’s” he snapped, “where is Martha Hudson?”

“In Florida” Mabel began, and Sherlock let out a shaky exhale, a new life in America didn’t sound too bad and Mrs Hudson had often expressed a burning desire to live abroad, not that she would of course, being the very bones of Baker Street.

“She was convicted of aiding and abetting a known felon in an American court of law and sentenced to fifteen years in a Florida jail, no chance of parole”

“But she didn’t have anything to do with that I proved as much and….I proved…”he trailed off as his own words brought the truth crashing down. “I proved it…but I wasn’t there, not this time, there was no-one else on her side”

Baker Street faded into the background, a ghost made of bricks and mortar.

Mabel nodded sadly, “I think we might finally be getting somewhere….I think you might have already guessed where we’re going next”

The building was innocuous, boring beige brick and a freshly painted white wooden door. An apartment block, mid-seventies by the design and construction. Sherlock was sure he had never been here before. And then, with startling clarity, he understood exactly where they were.

“John”

“As from today, yes, he and his new lady wife [icked up the keys this morning, in fact, here they are now”

A large white rental van pulled around the corner, gliding to a halt by the kerbside of the hateful suburban house. John jumped out and swept around to the passenger door, acting the part of the perfect gentleman as he dutifully held it open for his blushing bride. Well, that might have overstated the point somewhat, as the current Mrs Watson was the wrong side of forty, shorter than John with long dark hair and was about twenty pounds overweight for her height with generous hips and full luscious breasts.

Sherlock hated her on sight.

John passed her a key and she trotted up the garden path to unlock their new front door. Not carrying her over the threshold then, Sherlock thought, with more than a hint of smug satisfaction. John followed close behind, arms laden with a variety of hideous soft furnishings in equally bland shades of boring magnolia and grey, not John’s taste (he loved blue) at all.

“Where is his limp….did he not serve in this universe?”

“Of course he did, and he was invalided home just as before…he married his therapist, Monica, she cured him, but it took three years of hard work”

Sherlock felt flat. If the object of the exercise had been to show him that John would be miserable without a Sherlock in his life, it had been an abject failure this time. He longed for the solitude of home and the nip of a needle sinking into his arm.

“I don’t need to see anymore”

“Oh you do dear, this is only the beginning Sherlock….this is the most important trip of all”

“But he’s fine….better than, at least here, that is…” a thought occurred, “have you done this to him too you imbeciles?....the man has suffered from PTSD for the better part of the last five years and something like this would send him over the edge again” (he, on the other hand, had extensive experience with fantastical hallucinations)

Mabel shifted uncomfortably.

“I’m right…I knew it…what did you show him….what did he see for god’s sake?”

“Hush now Sherlock” the voice seemed to come from far away, carried like an echo on the air as the scene began to shift again.

John. Another bland doctor’s surgery, still treating the sniffles and lower back pain of the masses, ever the dutiful soldier and husband, Sherlock thought bitterly. John was last to leave the building at the end of the day, pressing the button that lowered the security grille across the windows and door with an audible sigh. He drew his phone from his pocket and punched in a string of digits before raising it to his ear and quirking his mouth into a hideously false smile.

John’s ‘lying through his back teeth’ face – Sherlock would recognise it anywhere, as in ‘no Inspector, I most certainly did not threaten this low-life criminal with an illegal army-issue handgun’.

He listened intently, interested to hear who this particular performance was aimed at.

“Hey love” Sherlock’s stomach twisted at the term of endearment aimed at the pretty dark-haired woman on the other end of the line (not him, why was it never him?) “I’ll be running a bit late….meeting some old rugby mates down the pub….no, just an hour or so, I promise….just wrap it in foil, I’ll heat it up in the microwave later….Yeah, you too”, he hung up.

Sherlock followed at a comfortable distance, even though by now he understood his anonymity was assured, but somehow he sensed that the normal rules of play didn’t apply when it came to him and John. The pub was half a mile away, standing between an Indian takeaway and an auto-spares shop.

Not a lie the, so far.

John pushed inside and made his way over to the crowded bar where he ordered a pint of dark, bitter Guiness, and then settled himself in a corner booth by the door. The pub was busy, so quite why this particular seat should be so conveniently empty stirred a sick, hollow feeling in the pit of Sherlock’s stomach. Time clicked by and the people in the pub passed around him as if he were a ghost, which he was in this context, an echo of another being from different universe, encroaching on this one. Two eyes blinked at him knowingly, a fat white cat, curled up under a stool near the bar.

He placed a finger on his lips in a silent ‘Shh’ as the cat flicked its tail back and forward in irritation. Mabel. Maybe she should stay like that, Sherlock would prefer it to the patronising nonsense that issued from her mouth.

John was no longer alone. In that moment of distraction, someone had approached his table and sat down, next to him, not across as he would have expected, and sitting much too close than any rugby friend of John’s ever had to his knowledge. The man was a good ten years younger than John and would have been in his early teens when John had played rugby.

The first part of the lie.

The next part made his fists itch with the desire to march over there and sink a right-hook into the man’s finely chiselled bone structure. He had a hand on John’s thigh under the table, drawing slow deliberate circles, up, up, until he hovered just below his groin. Above the table, behaviour was normal as they sipped on drinks and chatted about rubbish, the only visible signs, to Sherlock at least, were the twin pink stains on John’s cheeks. Sherlock looked closer at the man by his side…lover? A hook-up? The body language suggested that this wasn’t the first time they had met here, so close to John’s workplace, how maddeningly convenient. The most disturbing thing about this however, was the dark wavy hair, artfully tousled in almost a carbon copy of his own.

John frowned then, and looked up, guiltily pushing the hand off his thigh and staring right through him with a puzzled expression as Sherlock froze. Could he see him, or sense him somehow?

Whatever, the answer, the spell appeared to be broken and after a rather heated exchange the not-Sherlock stood up and stalked angrily away.

“John Watson is living a lie” said a voice by his ear, “married, a pretty little wife, but desperately lonely and craving something…….someone… more, can you guess who that is?”

“But I don’t exist here”

“No…you don’t, but in whatever time, whatever version of reality you choose, John Watson needs Sherlock and Sherlock needs John….you just saw it for yourself, you couldn’t be here, but nevertheless, he still knew you were….the bond between you is so strong”

“He married someone else….he doesn’t need me anymore”

“You’re wrong”

 

**EPILOGUE**

 

The lights in the window illuminated his face with a soft golden glow as Sherlock pushed open the door to Angelo’s.

John sat, in his usual place, facing out into the restaurant, head bowed over the menu, even though by now they both knew it by heart. Force of habit then.

“What took you so long?”

John’s face broke into a grin as Sherlock slid into the seat across from him, and took a nervous sip from a glass already filled with his favourite red wine.

“I took the scenic route” he said, and smiled

John nodded and laughed, his eyes crinkling up at the corners, the way they only ever did when he was with Sherlock

“Yeah, bit of a mind- fuck, that….but we’re here now, with a candle and everything” , he gestured to the customary little tea-light flickering on the table between them, “on a proper not-a-date, again”.

“Or we could erase the ‘not’….. how would you feel about that?

” Sherlock worried at his lip, steeling himself for the sting of rejection, insecurity creeping in again, now that they were both faced with this reality. But John apparently, had no such doubts, as he leaned across the table and whispered quietly in Sherlock’s ear

“Like getting the hell out of here now and seeing just how fast I can get you out of that fancy suit and make you see stars…..”

“I thought you’d never ask”

They were done with the scenic route, as they ran the whole way back and stumbled through the door of 221B, hands clutching and grabbing at any body part within reach, an arm, a thigh, a waist, an arse, kneading the flesh hard enough to leave marks, just to make sure it was real. Mrs Hudson popped her head out

“Really boys, do you have to make so much noise?.....such shenanigan’s …and at my time of life too”, but neither of them missed the warm smile on her face as turned her back and closed the door.

“There was a man, with his hand on your leg” Sherlock gasped as John attacked his throat, licking over the skin with long, teasing strokes.

“You were passed out on the bed, off your face on god know’s what” John moaned as Sherlock slammed him into the wall between kitchen and living room and thumbed his nipples through his clothes.

“I wanted to kill him”

“I thought for a second you were dead….again”

Sherlock pulled the offending jumper over John’s head and set to sucking on those puckered pink nubs until they were good and hard, while John fumbled with the buttons on his tight white shirt and pushed it off his shoulders with a growl.

“You were still an annoying git, so some things never change” John said as he worked at the button of his trousers and pushed a hand down into his pants.

“And you had a pretty little wife”

“Really?” John smirked a little, which earned him a bite on the earlobe and a sharp, tight tug on his cock, which made him yelp.

“Mycroft was an evil tyrant”

“No change there then”

John backed him into the sofa until his calves hit the seat, pushing him down and straddling his thighs, they paused for a second, panting hard to get their breath back, naked from the waist up. “Mrs Hudson put up the Christmas tree while I was gone” Sherlock nodded his head towards the corner of the room, where a crooked little tree sat, decked out in jolly baubles and sparkling tinsel and at the top, two silver bells, jingling lightly in the breeze from the open window.

“What was yours called?”

“Walter”, he was an annoying old dick, you would have got on really well….yours?”

“Mabel….husband and wife from what I could gather…”

“Poor old sods getting lumbered with us two”

“Quite….. but can you stop talking now and use your mouth for something else instead?”

“Bossy” John chuckled as he bent his head to Sherlock’s cock and sucked him down deeply with all the enthusiasm of man denied his heart’s desire for far too long, which he had if you thought about it, even though the one who had denied it was him.

And Sherlock did see stars, entire constellations and galaxies erupted before his eyes as John Watson gave him the best goddamn blow-job of his life.

He kissed John softly, watching the golden glow from the fireplace flickering in eyes, and knew that he would take this fucked-up version of reality every single time.


	9. Learning To Fly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just who is the mysterious new Gryffindor, Sherlock Holmes?, and why is he sneaking out of the castle in the dead of night?  
>  Can John Watson solve the mystery in time to have a happy holiday?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My very first attempt at Potterlock - please feel free to point out any glaring mistakes!

“Have you heard the big news yet John?”

“What news is that?”

John Watson slid on to the bench at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall. It was breakfast time and he was absolutely famished after an impromptu early morning Quidditch practice. After the teams’ dismal performance against Ravenclaw last week, they needed all the extra practice time they could get because the next match against Slytherin after the Christmas break would be a damn sight tougher.

Greg plopped down beside him, splattering small droplets of sweat and mud, much to the disgust of Irene, who threw daggers at him as she wiped the dirty splashes from her freshly laundered robes.

“You two are disgusting, couldn’t you change before coming in here?”

“No time”, John spoke through a mouthful of toast spread generously with strawberry jam, “so what’s this news you were just about to tell us?”

“Ah yes” Irene shifted into gossip telling mode, eyes alight with excitement “We have a new student joining us…a transfer”

“So” Greg slurped noisily at a mug of hot tea, earning another disapproving glare, “Kids transfer all the time, we’ve already had two since the start of term, what’s so fascinating about this one?”

“Well…rumour has it…he was expelled from his last school, Beauxbatons Academy”

“Oh god, he’s not French is he?”

Greg wrinkled his nose in disgust. Beauxbatons had beaten Hogwarts in the Inter-Schools Quidditch Tournament last year and resentments still ran high between the two schools, at least as far as Quidditch was concerned.

“No, here’s the thing, he’s not….his parents are an ancient pure-blood family who don’t agree with the progressive nature of education at Hogwarts”

John scowled, he wasn’t an idiot and could read between the lines just as well as Irene could, the family were against the education of muggle-born’s like he was, didn’t think them worthy of an exclusive magical education. Only an idiot would believe that those outdated attitudes had ended in the last uprising.

“So why the hell send their precious offspring here, where they might be contaminated by us filthy mud-bloods”

“John…for god’s sake” Irene shot him a dark look at the use of such an insult “I don’t like it any better than you do, but there’s more to it than that….the word is, he was expelled”

John glared back, great, an old-family snob and a trouble maker, with any luck the idiot would be sorted into Slytherin, sounded like he would fit right in there. He snatched up another piece of toast with rather muddy fingers and ripped off the crust, chewing angrily as the crunchy bread shredded his gums. John was just as good as any other student in the school, he was Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and had achieved ‘Outstandings’ in Defence Against The Dark Arts, Transfiguration and Charms in last years ‘O.W.L’s’. It wasn’t that he had some sort of inferiority complex, it was just fucking annoying that he had to try twice as hard as the next student just to prove himself, while pure-blood arseholes got it all handed to them on a silver platter the moment they left school.

“So it’s a bloke? Pity, would’ve liked a change of scenery around here” Greg nudged him in the shoulder, making his half-full glass of pumpkin juice slop all over his hand.

“Jesus Greg….do you ever think about anything other than getting you rock’s off?” John said.

“I’m seventeen, what the hell else am I supposed to be thinking about?”

Irene rolled her eyes, “I’ve already seen your wand Greg Lestrade, and it’s hardly impressive”.

Greg just grinned widely. After Quidditch, a spot of verbal sparring with Irene was his next favourite sport “Yeah, but just you wait and see what I can shoot out the end of it”, he winked.

John shook his head at them both, “ Let me know when you’ve both resolved the sexual tension or just drop the cheesy innuendo….so is this guy starting before Christmas?”

“Yeah…today” Irene broke off from her flirtathon with Greg, eager to get back on the gossip track “…I saw the house-elves bringing his trunks in, but I don’t think he arrives until this afternoon, and you just missed the announcement too, there’s to be a sorting after dinner this evening, so it looks like he’s here for the long haul”

John was intrigued despite himself. Why would a student from overseas transfer so close the Christmas holidays, surely it would be better to just start afresh after New Year? Whatever the kid had done, it must have been pretty bad to deserve snowy exile in the North. The whole thing sounded pretty permanent too, only students who intended to live out the remainder of their school career’s at Hogwarts were sorted, otherwise the Head of Year would just temporarily assign them to a House for the duration of their stay.

But Irene’s theory was only the start of the rumours. Throughout the course of the day John heard that the bloke had been threatened with abduction by enemies of his rich parents, that he’d murdered another student and that he’d blown half the school up, but whatever the truth was, he sounded like a major pain in the arse, and John fervently hoped that Slytherin would have the dubious pleasure.

By dinner time, the entire school was a-buzz, everyone eager for a glimpse of the new kid as every House table was crowded with chattering bodies. The kitchen elves had truly outdone themselves tonight, John thought as he tucked into a hearty meal of Beef Wellington and roast potatoes, followed by a generous helping of treacle tart. It was practically an orgasmic experience after a sad lunch of floppy ham sandwiches in the library while he and Mike, his Hufflepuff lab partner hurriedly caught up with the potions homework they had left over from the week before.

“That” he rubbed his stomach and let out a loud, satisfied belch, “was fucking fantastic”

“You’re such a filthy pig John, you wouldn’t dare do that at home in front of mum”, his younger sister Harry, a second year, squeezed onto the bench beside him, back after a bitching session with Clara, her best friend.

“Well we’re not at home are we” he said, taking another forkful of pie and purposely chewing with his mouth open as Harry shrieked in disgust.

He was so engrossed in winding his sister up that he missed the murmur of excitement that rippled down the room. Harry dug him in the ribs just in time to turn his head and make eye contact with the new kid, as Professor Marchbanks escorted him down the room. And oh god, didn’t he happen to pass right by him just at that moment and get a close-up view of John with a massive face-full of food, wrinkling his aristocratic nose in disgust as he stalked past.

They reached the front of the vast hall and he stood, head held high in front of the staff table, while the entire school looked on.

He was tall, and thin and pale, with a shock of dark wavy hair which just shouldn’t look good on a boy, but which he somehow managed to make look effortlessly cool. And he wore his school uniform like he had just stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine, no tie and enough buttons undone to expose a long white neck and a jut of sharp collarbone.

John felt a weird twisting sensation somewhere in the region of his lower abdomen.

“You might want to shut your mouth John, you’re starting to drool” Harry whispered in his ear, and he hurriedly ducked his head, quickly trying to swallow the half-chewed mouthful of food and hide his blazing face. He pressed a hand to his stomach in an attempt to quell the strange feeling swirling around inside him.

“Look at his eyes” he heard Irene hiss to Greg, who sat on her right, opposite him, “I heard he’s part Veela on his grandmother’s side....do you think it’s true?”

That would explain a lot about his ridiculous reaction, John thought with relief, it wouldn’t be his fault then, just a magic trick, the power to ensnare the senses that all Veela’s possessed. But still, seeing as the new kid was a boy, wouldn’t that only work on the girls? The uneasiness returned.

In the moment of distraction he had missed Professor Mcgonagall bringing the stool out and placing it on the raised platform in front of the staff table with the floppy old sorting hat perched daintily on top.

“Can I have your attention please” her soft Scottish brogue belied the steel and authority in her tone and the room immediately fell silent as hundreds of eyes turned to watch the new boy climb the steps to the stool and stand expectantly, looking out over the room, a cool confident gaze sweeping over and assessing the faces staring back at him. He was, quite frankly, gorgeous, John thought.

“I would like to introduce to you all, Mr Sherlock Holmes, who has joined us from the illustrious halls of Beauxbatons”

Sherlock snorted into the back of his hand which earned him an incredulous expression from the Head of Gryffindor House. John stifled a laugh of his own, Christ, Sherlock should be hoping he was sorted anywhere other than Gryffindor, because she would have his card well and truly marked.

“As I was saying” she scowled, Mr Holmes will be staying with us and will be sorted tonight….I’m sure he will be a valuable addition to whichever House he ends up in” she gave Sherlock an icy glare that would have turned any other student into a quivering wreck, but Sherlock merely quirked an eyebrow and gave her a slight bow before folding himself onto the tiny stool, bony knees almost touching his chin.

John looked on, knowing from experience that this could take a while. Sometimes it was instant, the hat knew exactly where you should be, but other times the choice was harder as the wearer tried to exert their will, and influence the hats’ choice. From what he could see of keen intelligent eyes and an obviously strong will, John thought Ravenclaw or Slytherin the most obvious fit, and besides, he couldn’t help but feel it was in his own best interests to keep away from this oddly mesmerising boy.

GRYFFINDOR !

The hat sang out, the house table erupting with noise as everyone clapped and cheered. Then McGonagall strode over and tapped John on the shoulder and said “Sherlock, this is John Watson, Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team and your new roommate in the Year 6 dormitories, I’m sure he will help you with anything you may need”

That calculating, icy stare locked on his and John felt a flutter in his chest as Sherlock smiled and said “Oh yes…I’m sure he will”

Jesus Christ he was fucked, John didn’t know how, but he was sure the bastard could tell there was something weird and quite possibly inappropriate going on inside his head, and now for god’s sake, he was going to have to share a room with him aswell?

It was all he could do not to lose it completely when Sherlock stuck out a long elegant hand to shake his own sweaty palm, and he tried not to dwell on the fact that they had held each other’s grasp for just a fraction too long. He pulled away, cheeks flaming, but no-one else had noticed, thank god.

As they climbed the staircase to Gryffindor Tower John was relieved to note that some of the bravado had slipped away as Sherlock glanced curiously, and nervously around. He seemed overwhelmed by the level of attention as everyone crowded around him, clapping him on the back in welcome and firing off a hundred and one questions. John relaxed a little, the guy was human after all.

“Do you play Quidditch?”

“What team do you support?”

“Is it true you murdered someone”

“ I heard your brother is a spy who works for the Muggle government”

John held up his hands and raised his voice a little “Hey cool it everyone, later maybe in the common room once I’ve shown Sherlock what’s what, okay?”

The look he received from the dark-haired boy was almost grateful as the passed through the portrait hole and crossed the common room, heading for the stairs that would take them to the sixth year dorms. The only other occupant in John’s room was a boy named Oliver Rose who was currently in the sick bay recovering from a close encounter with bubotuber puss. He wasn’t expected back in dorms before the end of term.

“So… erm” John stuttered nervously, aware that they were now, very much alone, “You will be here, next to the window…but I can do a swap if you want…I don’t mind, I’ll sleep anywhere you like”

Oh god, he really hoped that didn’t sound quite as suggestive as he belatedly thought it did.

“Anywhere….really?” Sherlock smiled a little as he glanced around the circular room, taking in the four-poster beds with their scarlet drapes that backed against the ancient exposed stonework. He crossed to the long, thin window and leaned out over the sill, evidently impressed by the view of the great lake below. “No…by the window will do just fine…but thanks for the offer” he drawled as he sat on the edge of the bed and bounced a little, testing the spring of the mattress.

John had a sudden urge to push him back against it and find a more interesting way to bounce up and down. Shit.

“I’m quite fine you know…there’s no need to hover” Sherlock drawled, “just go and do whatever it is you normally do”

“Oh, right, okay then I’ll leave you to it” he hoped the note of disappointment in his voice didn’t come through as he crossed to the door and made his way back down to the common room. It would have been nice to find out a bit more about him, seeing as they were going to share a dorm, but it sounded very much like a dismissal as Sherlock turned his back and began exploring the rest of the room.

“Well then, what’s he like….what did you find out?” all eyes turned eagerly on him as he flopped down beside Greg on the sofa in front of a crackling fire.

“Er, nothing really, we didn’t talk much”

“For fuck’s sake John, you’re useless” Harry moaned.

“What the hell did you expect?, he hardly struck me as the sociable type” Greg butted in, “but if he’s a half-decent Quidditch player, I might change my mind…. You should try him out for chaser John, if Pemberton’s still out of action after that bludger to the head he got last match, anyone would think he’d been hit by a bloody Confundus charm”

Sherlock did look like a flyer with his long elegant limbs and a ramrod straight back, John conceded, and it might be a good way to get him to integrate more with the rest of his House.

“Yeah, good idea Greg, I’ll run it by him tonight”

But Sherlock didn’t emerge from the dorm room all evening, and when John climbed the stairs at half past twelve, only the top of a dark, curly head was visible under the blankets.

He woke with a start at around three in the morning after a restless, unsatisfying dose, blinking in the darkness with no idea what had snapped him back to consciousness so abruptly. He untangled his sweaty limbs from the sheets and sat up. The room seemed unnaturally quiet.

“Sherlock?” John whispered into the impenetrable darkness. “Fuck this” , he plucked his wand from it’s place under his pillow and muttered “Lumos”.

The bed by the window was empty, Sherlock’s rumpled covers revealed in the glowing wand-light. John pressed a hand to the sheets, they were cold, Sherlock had been gone for some time. Oh god, he thought, surely the idiot hadn’t gone wandering around the castle on his own in the middle of the night? John cursed loudly and reached for his dressing gown. Maybe he was just in the common room, John thought as he padded down the stairs, because if he wasn’t, and John had to go looking for him, he would kill the bloody idiot if he got them both into trouble for being out of bed.

He stepped into the common room, the outlines of chairs and tables barely visible in the last of the light from the glowing embers in the fireplace. John tip-toed on slippered feet towards the portrait hole, and almost stumbled backwards in surprise as the entrance creaked open to reveal a very dishevelled and dirty Sherlock.

“What the hell….where the fuck have you been? I was just about to come looking for you” he hissed angrily at the sight of Sherlock looking supremely unconcerned.

“I didn’t require you to….I don’t need a babysitter….or some sort of ….bodyguard…John” Sherlock cut him down in those perfectly irritating, clipped tones.

“But…you don’t know your way around, and it’s fucking dangerous in the dark….and I didn’t think you even knew the password” he was sounding a bit pathetic now, even to his own ears, offering excuse after excuse as to why this infuriating boy should be in need of his help. The annoying thing was, that he couldn’t put his finger on why it bothered him so much.

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Sherlock sneered, “ As soon as I knew I was transferring here I memorised a map of the castle and grounds….I probably know more about the inner workings of this place than you do and you’ve already been here for five and a half years”

“Yeah but if you got caught the entire House suffers, we’ll get docked a shit-load of Championship points, and we’re currently a hundred and fifty up”

John cringed inwardly, knowing that this last plea for sanity had hit an all-time low. Sherlock, it seemed, agreed wholeheartedly.

“Oh god forbid some silly tin cup is the be-all and end-all of your sad little existence….pity….” he looked John up and down, fixing him with a searingly, icy glare, “I thought you seemed….more interesting than that….it looks like I was wrong for once”

Sherlock stalked by, trailing wet, muddy footprints across the floor, leaving John feeling like the idiot again as he scampered up the stairs behind him.

“I seemed more interesting?....what the hell do you mean by that?”

Sherlock rounded on him with an irritated sigh “You may be succeeding in fooling your friends, and maybe even yourself to some extent…but I know exactly who you are John Watson”

Sherlock crowded him up against the wall of the staircase which led back up to the dorm. His hair was damp with sweat and rain, and his pale skin appeared luminous, lit by thin strips of moonlight which shone down through the tiny windows. He was so close John could feel every puff of breath on the side of his face and neck. It was an effort of will not to lean forward and close the gap between them, to reach up and touch his face, or tangle his fingers in that hair.

Sherlock’s eyes flickered over his face, he searched his eyes, breathing heavily and slowly trailed down to settle over his mouth. John felt pinned down. He held his breath and unconsciously worried at the skin on his bottom lip. And for one terrifying moment, he though it could actually happen, that Sherlock might kiss him, but instead he just sighed and stepped away, continuing up the stairs.

“Better get back into bed like a good little boy John” he called back, over his shoulder, “wouldn’t want to ruin the pristine reputation of Gryffindor House now, would we?”

It occurred to John the next morning that he still had absolutely no idea where Sherlock had been to the night before, but Sherlock gave him no opportunity to question him further, rising early and going down to the Great Hall for breakfast alone. John joined the others at half-past eight, still yawning widely after the inadequate amount of sleep he had had the previous night.

“What’s up Watson….did Sherlock keep you up all night?” quipped Mike.

“What do you mean by that?” he spluttered, choking at little on his mouthful of cereal and milk.

“Steady on there mate, I just thought he might be a secret snorer or something….why? what the hell did you think I meant?”

Irene shot him a knowing look and he kicked her under the table. She was the only one who he’d told, that sometimes he was attracted to boys as well as girls.

“Snoring, yeah….he’s more of a restless sleeper….tosses and turns a lot”

“My little brother does that a lot” Mike hummed in agreement, “ When he starts thrashing around, I just give him a good hard poke, does the trick…he will be pissed off though”

John glared at Irene who just raised her eyebrows innocently, hoping to hell she would resist the temptation of Mike’s unwitting innuendo and keep her mouth shut. The very last thing he needed to imagine was giving Sherlock a good hard poke.

“Where is he anyway”, he asked, curiosity suddenly getting the better of him. John glanced around the Hall which was rapidly emptying as everyone left to get ready for their first class.

“Dunno mate” Greg shrugged apologetically, “He just took a mug of coffee and left with it, didn’t even sit down…..I figured he’d just gone back to Gryffindor tower”.

So he didn’t sleep and didn’t eat. John wondered just what other weird habits his strange new roommate might have.

Those questions were destined to remain unanswered, at least for the moment as he fought his way along the crowded corridors to his first class, Transfiguration. Sherlock was already there seated at the front, dark head bowed over a thick, complex looking volume, not the standard school issue text book. He spent the entire class like that, reading intently and occasionally raising his head to yawn and gaze around him with an air of disdain at the efforts of his classmates.

John had never had much trouble with this class, a natural aptitude, Professor McGonagall had proudly said, and he would take that ,because praise from her was a very rare thing. He regarded the perfect willow pattern plate before him with a smug sense of pride, before changing it back into a grey Persian kitten with an idle flick of his wrist.

He looked up and his face reddened as he caught Sherlock’s eye. The boy narrowed his eyes slightly and one side of his mouth quirked up into the ghost of a smile. A deep baritone voice rumbled from somewhere behind him as he packed up his things to leave the room.

“You’re good, better than good really, but you hide at the back of the room, like you don’t want anyone else to notice you….why?”

“Er hello, are you actually speaking to me now?”

“Of course I am…I’m doing it now” Sherlock said, incredulous. John had to snigger at the affronted expression and the way his deep voice had gone up a level when he was trying not to sound annoyed.

“Well, you know, play your cards close to your chest and all that” he shrugged and kept walking and this time it was Sherlock who was trying to keep up. The truth was, that Sherlock’s words had actually struck a cord. He had seen it so many times, here and elsewhere, that if people got the slightest whiff that you thought you could be a bit special at something then there would be a queue of people standing there waiting to beat you down. Sherlock had obviously been born without that particular instinct for self-preservation.

“It’s a shame….you certainly didn’t strike me as a coward”

“What the….”

There it was again, that clinically accurate scraping into the very depths of his psyche, picking at the very thing that he was trying to conceal, like tearing off a loose scab.

“Hey” he raised his voice and lengthened hi stride to catch up, grabbing at a long slender arm and swinging Sherlock round. “Are you some sort of Occlumens?.... I mean how can you know stuff like that and….. the other thing…..last night…. without reading my mind?”

“I don’t need to resort to such petty mind tricks….I just …observe”

“Well you’re dead wrong this time mate”, John said defensively, “And what’s more… I’ll bloody well prove it”

John felt mildly triumphant as a flicker of doubt passed across Sherlock’s haughty face. He pressed his advantage.

“Last night….wherever it was you wandered off to….I know you were planning on going back….and this time….I’m coming with you”

“That won’t be necessary” Sherlock scowled

“Oh, I think it’s very necessary….who’s the coward now?”

For a moment John thought he had pushed too far as Sherlock’s eyes flashed dangerously dark, but then he huffed in annoyance, turned on his heel and flounced off. Not exactly a no then, but it hardly counted as a yes. No matter, John was on to him now and the bastard wouldn’t slip by him again.

But not going to Arithmancy then. John groaned inwardly at the thought of all those complex numbers and symbols which were proving this year, to be the bane of his existence…..and Sherlock thought he was actually trying to conceal some hidden brilliance? He turned his feet towards South tower and wished he had the balls to skive off too.

Their paths didn’t cross for the rest of the day, and John was relieved to discover that Sherlock’s appalling attempts at social interaction had been noticed by everyone, not just him. Sherlock avoided everyone apparently, at lunch he had just grabbed another coffee and a handful of biscuits before disappearing off again. Mike said he’d been in the library all afternoon, half-hidden behind a towering pile of ancient Grimoire’s and Lexicon’s.

“Rumour has it” said Irene, and John groaned again, the sheer volume of rumours surrounding the guy were just getting ridiculous, “the teacher’s don’t know quite what to do with him because he’s actually smarter than them”.

“Come on, no-one can be that brilliant at everything, there just has to be something that he’s crap at”

“Well, you’re his roommate, let us know when you find out”

~*~

That night John was ready for him, just waiting for the moment when he would try and sneak out, and sure enough around two in the morning the bedcovers rustled as Sherlock crept quietly out of bed and began moving across the room towards the door. He was dressed in warm clothes with his winter robes on.

“Going somewhere” the tall slender figure stiffened in the dark.

“Don’t you have better things to do than to keep track of my movements? I won’t get caught if that’s what you’re worried about”

John detected a slight hint of panic in the other boy’s voice.

“Look, if you’re in some sort of trouble….or I don’t know…..whatever’s bothering you so much that you have to sneak off out in the dead of night….you can trust me, tell me why…I won’t tell anyone”

The figure in the darkness exhaled impatiently “Oh for god’s sake…fine, see if I care….just hurry up or there won’t be enough time”

“Ta dah!” John leaped out of bed with a grin, already fully dressed in an old Quidditch kit and warm robe and Sherlock smirked despite himself.

“A bit keen aren’t you?”, he laughed softly

“Just proving a point….that I do know how to have a bit of fun”

“Now who said it was going to be fun? And whatever happened to the art of stealth, because for someone who doesn’t want to be caught you’re making a hell of a lot of noise” Sherlock scowled at him again in the light from John’s wand tip, the shadows accentuated the dips and planes of his face. “And you can put that out for a start…I have excellent night vision”

“Nox”

John was blinded for a second as he forgot to look away from the light, red and green dancing before his eyes. Sherlock growled in annoyance and grabbed a handful of robe, almost pushing him out through the door. The common room was deserted and so was the outer corridor too as they tentatively dropped through the portrait hole and stole silently down the first flight of stairs heading determinedly for the main doors.

“Outside? Are you insane?” John hissed and then jumped in surprise as Sherlock’s finger pressed down against his lips, soft and warm

“Shh!...Not yet” he mouthed as they reached the heavy oak doors, and all John could manage to do at that moment was nod mutely in response.

Oh god, he actually was a mad-man John thought as the lock clicked, echoing in the darkness, and the door edged open engulfing them both in an icy blast. The wind had picked up and a flurry of snow was beginning to coat the ground and John knew from bitter experience that by morning they could be knee deep in snow. But Sherlock was obviously not put off in the slightest as he boldly struck out across the courtyard.

"Aren’t you worried that Filch might still be sniffing around? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that bloke sleep or his creepy cat for that matter”

“All taken care of” said Sherlock with a confident smile, “He confiscated a beautiful box of French confectionary from me this afternoon….laced with a rather strong sleeping draught”

“So what’s the plan then?”

“Well” Sherlock heaved a sigh “You’re going to stand there and freeze your bollocks off while I humiliate myself”

“What?”

Sherlock ducked into the passageway which led to the Quidditch training ground, paused at the door to the changing rooms and reached into his pocket, pulling out a scroll-like bundle and untying the smooth leather cord. The contents of the bundle glinted in the dark night.

“Lock-picks? You’re a wizard for fuck’s sake, what’s wrong with your wand?”

"Nothing at all John, and I thought you of all people would appreciate the more conventional means of breaking and entering employed by muggles the world over…..besides, the lock has been protected against counter-charms, this is the only way to get what I want”

“And that is……?”

“A broomstick for god’s sake John”

He wasn’t kidding either. John hovered nervously outside to keep watch and minutes later Sherlock emerged carrying two training brooms from the storage cupboard.

“Couldn’t you just practise during the daytime, why all the secrecy…I don’t get it”

John frowned as Sherlock handed him rather wonky looking old model Cleansweep with a number of bristles hanging out.

“Just hold that thought” Sherlock grimaced as they headed out to the Quidditch ground. The floodlights were still glowing with a perpetual illumination charm as they always did during the winter months as this far North, the hours of daylight were incredibly short. “We won’t be seen” Sherlock added as John cast nervous glances at the castle windows where lights were still visible as some members of staff had yet to retire for the night, “ I cast a concealment charm, anyone looking outside would recognise us only as a couple of birds”

“Really? That’s fucking awesome…what type am I?”

“A Peregrine Falcon, small, compact and extremely fast” Sherlock blushed a little and turned away.

“And you?”

John was flattered by his avian substitute and was keen to learn how Sherlock viewed himself, probably something rare like a Golden Eagle, he guessed.

“A Harris Hawk…larger, dark feathers, neither are nocturnal, but I just picked what seemed to fit us”

“Okay….I’ll buy that (A Hawk? Close enough)….show us your moves then”

John jerked his head towards the broomstick still clenched awkwardly upright in Sherlock’s hand.

“Well that’s the thing you see” he sighed resignedly, “I don’t have any”

“As in….you’re a bit rusty….out of practice, maybe?” John questioned.

“Not exactly…..more like I’ve never actually made it off the ground”

“What?” John spluttered, “You’re kidding me, right?” Because the thought of this elegant, confidant boy being unable to fly was absolutely ridiculous.

“I knew this was a bad idea” Sherlock spat, “I should never have agreed to let you come with me”

He was embarrassed, and defensive, John could see that, and he mentally kicked himself for being so bloody tactless. Yes, it was a chink in Sherlock’s impeccable armour, but that only served to make him more endearingly human and not some teenage super-wizard after all.

“Look, I’m sorry, I’m a thoughtless git…..let me teach you. I taught my sister when she was six and she’s a bloody fantastic seeker…..don’t ever tell her that though…..got to keep up the pretence of sibling rivalry and all that”

It was true, even though John hadn’t learnt until his first year at Hogwarts’s having had two Muggle parents, you would think he had been born on a broomstick, outclassing almost all of his peers from day one. He had made Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team in only his third year and If anyone could get Sherlock off solid ground, it would be him.

“I have an older brother, Mycroft, he works for the Ministry…he’s spent most of our childhood telling me how stupid I am”

“But you’re not….anyone could see that, he sounds like a right dick”

“Yes well, my parents in their wisdom thought I would be better off under his watchful eye from now on, after….” He stopped, and stared at John thoughtfully for a minute before he went on, “After I was kicked out of Beauxbatons. I know what people have been saying , that I killed someone, but they’re wrong”.

The defensive stance was back again, just when John thought they had started to make some progress. He decided to be kind and give Sherlock an out because this wasn’t why they were out here after all, and because he didn’t believe for one second that Sherlock had anything to do with murdering anyone.

“Hey look, don’t feel like you have to spill your guts out here, we’ll have loads of time later…if you still want to tell me….and anyway,I believe we have some flying to do” he grinned, feeling suddenly alive with the desire to be up in the air once again, for no matter how short a time.

“By that I take it you mean, you fly and I spend an hour falling off and rolling around on the ground?”

“Nope, not on my watch” John patted the space on the broom behind him, “Come on, hop on the back and I’ll take you for a little ride, get you used to the feel of it…being off the ground”

“You have got to be joking” Sherlock backed away, shaking his head, but laughing despite himself a mixture of nerves and genuine amusement, “You can’t get two of us on the back of one…quite frankly…decrepit school broom”.

“No, dead serious, I’m vertically challenged you’ve just got a skinny little arse, so we’ll just count as one large student anyhow….get on …now!”

John wriggled impatiently, eager to be off now they were actually out here. He loved night flying, the sense of freedom and abandonment, unlike anything you would experience during the day, but he rarely got the chance living in a predominantly muggle town. He felt the back of the broom dip down under the added weight as Sherlock swung a gangly leg over and tentatively placed his hands around John’s waist.

“I didn’t think you were the shy type Sherlock…feel free to hold on a bit tighter, I promise I won’t break”

Two slender hands snaked forward and clasped together around his stomach, and it felt…nice…safe. It was just like having Harry on the back he told himself, there was little difference in body weight, except for the bloody bony knees, digging somewhere in the region of his lower back.

“This is not a good idea….in fact this is fucking terrible idea, and we’re both going to die horribly”

Sherlock groaned softly and actually buried his face between John’s shoulder blades…it was not an altogether unpleasant experience, and he had to try very hard to resist the temptation to shake the broom around a bit. But John took it slow at first as Sherlock was stressed out enough, rising slow and steady until the boy behind him began to relax, before leaning forward a little facing away from the path of the oncoming snow. It was all fine until he leaned to the left to skirt the corner out into the main grounds. Sherlock slid sideways a little and panicked, clutching at any part of John he could grab, cloak, jumper, thigh, skin. If he didn’t do something they would both be off and from twenty feet it would bloody well hurt. John pulled up and hovered, determined not to give in to Sherlock’s fear and take them back down.

“I’ve got you….I promise Sherlock…I won’t let you fall” he reached around and placed a reassuring hand on his arm.

“How do you know that? We’ve barely made it out of the courtyard and I’m already half-off”

Sherlock scrambled desperately, trying to hitch his arse further round and up. John could feel every tremble of his body as it pressed against him, even through the thick material of two sets of winter robes

“You have to trust the broom to hold you…us… up Sherlock, but the problem is, you don’t”

“Damn right I don’t, it defies all logic”

“Since when did the wizarding world ever take logic into account? Hmm?...Think about it Sherlock”

“Think is all I damn well do…all I can think about is the high probability of sustaining several broken bones”

Sherlock shuffled around until he was firmly seated and adjusted his grip so he wasn’t holding on to John quite so tightly and actually lifted his head to rest his chin on John’s shoulder instead. John couldn’t resist a smile.

“Stop being such a bloody drama queen and just try and enjoy yourself, this is supposed to be fun” and with that he took off again, putting his trust in Sherlock’s innate sense of self-preservation, not to pull them both off onto the ground.

The truth was, it was worth it just to feel Sherlock’s arms tighten around his waist again and his breath, heavy against the side of his neck and face. The air rushed past his ears and blew the short, blond hair back from his face as they climbed higher and picked up speed, the rushing snowflakes turning black against the night sky. They rushed past a window, at least five storey’s up on North Tower, and there, reflected in the leaded panes were the shadowy shapes of two birds, a small one in front and a larger one pressed in close behind.

He glanced down to find his own two very human hands gripping the front of the broom, pale in the dark – Sherlock’s concealment charm had worked.

John felt a sudden absence of bony chin as Sherlock lifted his head to squint into the dark.

“This is…this is…amazing….I’ve never…never been this high before….no-one ever tried to teach me….gave up, so I just thought it would never happen and…” he had raised his voice to be heard, before slowly trailing off to almost a whisper, “oh John, thank you so much”

“Hey, we’re not done yet, we need to get you flying solo” he called back over his shoulder, jerking in surprise as a strong vibration shot up his right side. The broom bucked slightly in his grasp.

“What the hell was that?”

“Just a little remainder that our time is up…sleeping draughts are notoriously difficult to judge, but if we head back now we shouldn’t attract any unwanted attention….that is, I hope not”

They drifted slowly to the ground, gliding smoothly back down to the storage shed in the courtyard.

“That was amazing” John gasped as they made their way swiftly back through the grounds towards the heavy oak doors of the main entrance, “Please say we can do that again tomorrow”

“But John…we can’t”

“Why not? Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy the hell out of that, even though I’m sure I’ll have bruises on my hips where you were bloody squeezing me so hard” he made a show of rubbing his abused skin, chuckling at Sherlock’s expression of unmitigated horror.

Sherlock gave a sigh and placed a hand on his arm, bringing them both to an abrupt halt “It’s the end of term tomorrow…that’s why not, you’ll go home and I’ll be here for two weeks, back to square one”

“Doesn’t your family celebrate Christmas then?”

“You mean that archaic custom where even the magical community succumbs to the lure of mass consumerism? No, it’s not that…I can’t go home…it’s not safe yet…but that’s not what I’m saying, I just don’t think I can do this on my own”

It looked like this admission of weakness was costing every shred of pride that Sherlock had as he tore his hand and his gaze away and stomped towards the doors.

“Hang on, you complete berk” John called, running to catch up, “…I never said I was going home, you just assumed that”

“You mean…you’re staying here for the holidays too? But why…I know you have a family, a younger sister, mother, father…”

“Stepfather”, John shrugged “and we don’t get on, never have….he’s a drunken arsehole of a muggle who thinks he can just rock up and replace my dad…if I went home, I’d probably curse the bastard and end up in front of a tribunal”

“So…”

“So, yeah, you’re gonna be stuck with my ugly mug for the duration of the Christmas holidays”

“Oh I think I’ll cope…you’re not that offensive to the eye John”

Sherlock smiled, a genuine smile then, the kind that causes twinkling eyes and makes adorable little creases at the corners. John flushed a little, glad that Sherlock had walked away as his fingers itched with the urge to just reach out and touch him. Would he let him? Would he mind? And why the hell was John so desperate to know. Two whole weeks alone in the year six dorms, oh god, Sherlock might be able to cope, but he was no longer sure if he could, disarmed so easily by a simple, friendly smile.

A smile which froze the minute they stepped over the threshold back into the castle.

Sherlock put out a hand to stop him as John walked straight into his back “Something’s wrong” he whispered, “Listen, do you hear that?”

They stood, frozen as John strained his ears to hear, just catching the sound of footfall coming from the floor above and two voices, carrying faintly down the stairs. They were exposed here, standing in the empty, echoing foyer, only the Great Hall and the staircase lying between them and their imminent discovery.

“Come on, over here” John whispered urgently, pushing Sherlock roughly to a small recess behind a suit of armour at the foot of the stairs.

“John…I really don’t think we’re both going to fit in there” Sherlock protested, eyeing the tiny space, no more than five foot high.

“Well just because you’ve studied some maps, smart-arse, doesn’t mean you know this castle better than I do…did you actually think I hadn’t snuck out at night before?”

John squeezed inside and pressed three fingers into a gap in the stone, Sherlock gasping behind him as the slab slid back to reveal a broom cupboard, but not the flying sort. John shoved him inside as the feet came closer sliding the stone back into place and sealing them both in darkness. He jumped as a hand groped blindly and connected with the side of his face.

“Can you open it a crack, I want to hear who’s out there”

Sherlock was standing much too close in the confined space of the cupboard, taking up all available room that wasn’t already occupied by John. He pushed until a tiny chink of light appeared and a faint stream of air tickled their faces, John pressed up against the cold stone and Sherlock crowding in behind, ear as close as he could get to the gap in the wall.

“I swear I saw them Seb…Watson and the new boy Holmes, I was looking out of the common room window and they were there, hanging around the storage shed, the Quidditch one in the….”

“I know where you idiot”

“But the next minute it was just two birds, not owls though, birds of prey, some sort of Hawk and a tiny one”

Sherlock stifled a snigger at this description of John earning him a very sharp elbow to the stomach. He gave a soft ‘oof’ and John put out a warning hand to silence him, grabbing something warm and…oh god. He snatched his hand away again and wished he could just disappear or die of embarrassment, either option would do right now.

He tried to focus on the two figures approaching, Sebastian Moran and Philip Anderson, two sly and vindictive sixth-year Slytherin’s who would search for any excuse to cause trouble for Gryffindor. Seb was captain of their Quidditch team, and Anderson played seeker and the lengths they were willing to go to win the House cup knew no bounds.

“Are you high? Been at the Euphoria Elixir again Anderson? Cause if this is some sort of wild goose chase and we get caught, I’m going to kill you in the slowest and most painful way that I can find…how about we start with the Furnunculus curse….. fancy a facefull of boils?”

“Won’t it be worth all the trouble if we can get Watson banned for the next match though?”

Anderson simpered nervously, edging away from the glowing tip of Seb’s wand. It was no secret that half of Slytherin viewed Seb Moran with a nauseating amount of undeserved reverence, blinded by the power and wealth of his pure-blood family, but he was a bully, of the twisted and quite possibly psychotic sort.

“Yeah, that little dick’s got it coming, him and his pretty new boyfriend” Seb sniffed as they padded across the foyer and disappeared through the large oak doors.

John heaved a sigh of relief and leant his forehead against the cool, soothing stone,

“Right I think we’ve got a good ten minutes to get back to the dorms before they come back”

“As long as that?”

“Yeah, they’ll definitely scout around a bit, just to make sure there are no strange birds flapping about….Sherlock?”

“Hmm?....New…”

“What?”

“The chunky moron…said ‘new’….new boyfriend….which implies you’ve had a boyfriend before”

“That’s what you’re thinking about? Not getting our arses back to the common room before we really do get caught?”

John tried to twist round in the cramped space all too aware of how closely pressed together they were, wincing as a stack of old cleaning brooms clattered to the floor.

“Seb was talking bull Sherlock, and no, there has never been any ‘boyfriend’ before…”

“Before what John? Before this, perhaps?”

Two incredibly soft lips pressed into his mouth, much softer than they had any right to be considering they belonged to another boy. A voice in his head screamed at him to pull back, but there was nowhere to pull back to and this was…good…better than good, a bit sloppy maybe, a touch too much tongue if he had to be honest, but undeniably, incredibly, hot.

But breathing was essential, although admittedly boring when faced with this hormone fuelled alternative. They reluctantly pulled apart.

“We do share a dorm you know?” Sherlock whispered darkly sending shivers down John’s neck and spine, and a few brief seconds felt like an hour as they stared each other down.

“They’ll be back any minute, we really need to make a run for it now”

John pushed the stone that concealed them aside and wriggled through, grabbing a handful of Sherlock’s robes and hauling him through too, cursing and complaining as he bumped the top of his head against low threshold. In silent agreement they toed off their shoes and ran on sweaty, socked feet, up three flights of stairs and along seemingly endless corridors, adrenaline coursing through their veins long before they reached Gryffindor Tower.

The Fat Lady winked at them as they skittered to a halt in front of her.

“Having fun boy’s?”

“Butternut squash” John panted

“Ooh, you saucy young devil!” she squealed as the portrait hole swung open to let them pass.

“Oh my god, this night has been insane, that has to be the maddest thing I’ve ever done” John laughed as they fought to see who could get up the narrow, winding staircase that led to the dorms, the fastest.

“Do you mean the flying, or the snogging in a broom cupboard part?” Sherlock yanked him back by a handful of robe and wriggled past, bounding up the steps on his long legs, taking them three at a time.

“Oi, you lanky git” John raced after him, barrelled through the doorway and executed a perfect rugby tackle-cum-swan dive, taking Sherlock down by his knees and landing on top of him squashed between his bedframe and the window.

“Well, if you wanted to shag me, you could just ask politely you know John” Sherlock wriggled on the floor beneath him.

“Oh god Sherlock don’t do that”

“Do what?....Oh… do you mean this?” he grabbed John’s waist to pull them flush against each other, and circled his hips in a slow, teasing grind. John buried his head in Sherlock’s chest to stifle the moan that forced its way up his throat.

“You’re such a fucking tease Sherlock” he raised his head a little to stare into Sherlock’s lust-blown eyes.

“I know” he rocked against him again until John was sure he couldn’t take it anyone, painfully hard inside the confines of his clothes. “Would you like to know why the hat put me here, in Gryffindor?”

“Mmm” John mumbled, sucking hard on the pale white skin of Sherlock’s neck

“I…oh…ahh…god, John”

“What’s wrong Sherlock did you think you had me right where you wanted me there?”

Sherlock wrapped a long leg around his waist, shifted to the side and casually flipped them over. John’s head connected with the floorboards with a thunk.

“You sneaky bastard” he gasped

“As I was saying” Sherlock continued, as he pushed his robes off his shoulders, letting them fall to the floor, the other layers followed soon after revealing acres of smooth white skin just begging to be marked “The hat told me I would be too much of a corrupting influence on the studious minds of Ravenclaw”, he shivered as John ran his hands up and down, exploring the warm soft skin beneath his eager fingertips “and besides that, my true destiny lay here, in Gryffindor” he arched his head back, melting under John’s touch.

“So your current plan, I take it, is to corrupt me instead?”

“Oh I think we both know I’m too late to do that. I could see it in your eyes as soon as I looked at you, that very first time, with your mouth full of sticky pie…the things you wanted to do to me…filthy things…and I would let you do them all….will let you John”

“You could be some sort of mad-man, Christ, you know people have been saying you killed someone”

“Don’t be ridiculous John…I didn’t commit a murder…I solved one”

Sherlock breathed as he yanked John’s jumper off over his head leaving them both naked from the waist up. He shivered, “Bed?”

“God yes”

Sherlock leapt up, far too agile for someone sporting a massive erection. For his part, John wanted him so badly, he wasn’t sure if his legs would support his weight anymore as Sherlock hauled him up and pushed him back against the mattress straddling his hips for the second time.

No need to test that theory yet, apparently.

It started with a touch, fingers smoothing down the length of that pale, slim torso as Sherlock looked down at him eyes glazed over with want, breath expelled in ragged pants.

“Can I?.....Do you want to?” he gestured nervously to the covers on the bed, pulling them to the side slightly with one hand. They wordlessly scrambled beneath them, shyly shedding trousers, socks and pants which were unceremoniously shoved off the side onto the floor.

Side by side now, John could feel the intensity of body heat radiating out and the insistent press of hard flesh against hard flesh. He shuffled closer still and wound his arms around Sherlock’s slender waist, sliding his right hand down to gently squeeze and knead a generous handful of arse cheek.

Christ he was gorgeous. John felt like an ugly little troll in comparison.

As if sensing his insecurities Sherlock raised a hand and smoothed his hair back from his face “You’re perfect”, before bending forward to kiss every doubt right out of his muddled head again.

The entire world narrowed down to one fixed point, Sherlock. He tasted like lemonade and gingerbread as John tasted around his mouth, licking and nibbling , tangled together, too hard then too soft, teeth clashing together and biting down on tender flesh as they competed for dominance.

John came out on top, literally, hands braced on either side of Sherlock’s head as he hovered over the body, spread out beneath him like an invitation, a promise. Sherlock arched his head back, exposing his neck, wordlessly begging to be taken, and well, John had never been one to hold back when he wanted something, or in this case, someone, so he lowered himself down with a groan, latching on like a starving man or some sort of animal marking his territory in bruises and blood.

So intent on what his mouth could achieve he lost track of his lower half, and was given a timely reminder as Sherlock bucked beneath him, wrapping two long legs around his back as he desperately thrust upwards cocks sliding together damp with sweat and pre-ejaculate. The sensations caused by the friction was almost too much as John fought to control the clenching ache in the pit of his gut and thighs that quivered and shook just with the effort of holding himself back from tipping right over the edge.

“If you fall I fall with you, remember?” Sherlock whispered hoarsely as they rubbed up frantically against each other, kissing forgotten, impossible now, just panting into each others’ open mouths, trying to hold back for as long as possible, so this didn’t have to end, but at the same time desperate to come.

“I want to see you…please John” Sherlock gasped, slowing his hips and squeezing down on John’s waist to catch his attention. It was an effort of will to stop moving when he was so bloody close.

“What do you want?”

“Just stay there a sec” Sherlock wriggled out from beneath him and John collapsed onto the mattress, sprawled on his back until Sherlock pushed him over onto his side. It took a few moments to register that the crazy idiot had flipped around to bring them lying head to toe, well, more like head to…another sort of head. He had never seen someone else’s cock this close, long and dusky pink, a sticky bead of fluid gathered at the slit, bobbing tantalisingly right in front of his face, just begging for John to reach out with his tongue and taste.

The noise Sherlock made was unholy as John’s made contact, feeling the heat and the weight of him, tasting salt and inhaling the scent of sweat and musk. God, it was addictive he thought, as his tongue snaked out to lick again from base to tip, bringing a hand into play to hold the shaft steady and tilt it down towards his open mouth. John worked on instinct and base need, as he wrapped his lips around Sherlock’s cock and sucked, swirling his tongue around to generate saliva, slurping greedily with no real goal in mind, just enough to have Sherlock’s dick in his mouth.

He gave a muffled yelp, quite difficult with a mouthful of cock as he felt his own cock disappear inside the warm, silky wetness of Sherlock’s eager mouth. He pulled off for a second with a wet pop, just feeling the suck and slide and watching those perfect lips stretched wide around him, wondering how the hell he had gotten so lucky and wondering if Sherlock had a slipped some Felix Felicis in his pumpkin juice when his back was turned.

As if in answer, Sherlock gave his balls a tug, a silent but insistent ‘get on with it John’. The sucks and licks were uncoordinated now suffering greatly from lack of focus, because really, it was fucking hard to concentrate on giving head when the person you were giving it to also happened to be sucking you off. He must have been doing something right though as Sherlock went rigid for a moment and gave him a warning squeeze on the arse, but he didn’t let go, didn’t want to, not when they had taken this thing so far, but Christ, no-one had warned him just how much stuff there would be and the weird texture and mildly clinical taste of come. But hey, it was all good protein and it wouldn’t kill him, supposed to be good for the skin too, or did you have to rub it in for that, and shit, why the hell was he thinking about that anyway when his own cock was on the brink of off-loading into Sherlock’s mouth.

He let Sherlock’s softening cock drop from his lips and buried his head in the comforting warmth of Sherlock’s thighs as that talented tongue continued to work him over flickering back and forward teasingly across the head, until Jesus Christ, a long slender digit slick with saliva ran purposefully along the crack of his arse. And Oh holy fuck, John howled like a bloody dog as he came in shuddering, body shaking pulses down Sherlock’s throat.

“You….why did you do that…how could you even know that would happen?” he gasped once sure he had regained the use of his vocal cords for something other than embarrassing animal noises.

“I didn’t” Sherlock said smugly as he flipped back around and insinuated himself as close as he could possibly get, wrapping arms and legs around him like a damn octopus, “but it was good, I hope?”

“God yes…just…unexpected, good job you were finished or I might have accidently bitten your cock off”

John nuzzled into the space between shoulder and neck, eyes heavy with the sleepiness of the post-orgasmic male.

“Stay here…together” he murmured as he drifted into unconsciousness.

~*~

When he woke, bleary eyed and disoriented in the morning, he fully expected Sherlock to be gone, like last night had been a dream, a figment of an over-sexed adolescent imagination. But there he was, curled up under the covers, looking impossibly beautiful and young without the weight of expectation and a notorious reputation hanging over his dark, curly head.

Hunger ,of the grumbling belly variety, not the toe-curling desire kind. That was why he had woken, his body’s need for tea and toast outweighing the temptation to wake Sherlock up for round two.

Shit, they had two weeks of this waking up together, sharing a bed…and whatever else without the need to face down a roomful of students and Professors each day. If they wanted to, for the holiday’s at least, it would be easy to avoid all unnecessary contact with the rest of the human race. The thought was more than a little tempting.

“Breakfast?” he prodded Sherlock warily, like poking at a rattlesnake or a sleeping lion.

“No…you” Sherlock tugged on the sleeve of his dressing gown.

“Some of us need more than just coffee and fresh air” John chuckled as he playfully shoved him away, “Shall I bring you some breakfast in bed?”

He got a grunt in return, probably as much as he could expect.

The Great Hall was thrumming with excitement and chatter, as John slipped onto the bench next to Greg, dressed and packed, ready for the journey by Thestral drawn carriage to the waiting Hogwart’s express.

“Hey John, thought I’d already missed you…been having a lie-in?”

“Yeah…something like that” he poured some well-stewed tea from a pot into an over-sized mug, adding milk and then two sugars as an afterthought. Blood sugar, needed a boost after last night. He hid his smirk inside the giant cup.

“You won’t have heard yet” Greg continued, oblivious of the rising flush spreading over his cheeks, “Moran and Anderson got a match ban for being caught out of bed last night”

“Really? It couldn’t have happened to a nicer pair…puts them in a bit of a difficult position for the next Quidditch game then?”

“That’s not all though mate, they were shooting their mouths off, claiming that they saw you and Sherlock out there, by the storage sheds, and right before their eyes you morphed into a couple of fucking birds….can you believe that? I almost pissed myself I laughed so hard…you, an Animagus?...fucking morons”

“Come on” John answered, “If I had the skill to change into an animal at will, do you seriously think I’d choose a bird?”

“Exactly mate” Greg nodded enthusiastically as he knicked a piece of John’s toast, pulling a face a the sweet taste of inch thick strawberry jam.

“Don’t pinch then” John said as he snatched it back.

“Well, well, well” Irene sidled up behind him, running a fingertip down the left side of his neck, the side currently hidden from Greg, the side…oh shit, right, that.

“Late night, keeping your strength up…or a bit of both?”

Greg looked from one to the other, forehead wrinkled in confusion, until he put two and two together and made five “I already told him, about the bird thing….Moran and Anderson”

Irene gave an exasperated sigh “And you want to go in to Magical Law Enforcement? Seriously Greg, it’s written all over his face…. And neck…” she turned to John, “I take it the boy-wonder is still sleeping off the after effects?”

“Erm…yeah, maybe…for fuck’s sake don’t tell anyone else yet, I don’t know if he would want that”

“Of course I won’t…..and Greg darling, you might want to shut your mouth before you start catching flies…….Merry Christmas beautiful” she kissed John on the cheek and grabbed Greg’s arm “Come on you”

“Happy holiday’s mate” he winked as he let Irene shepherd him out of the room.

Sherlock was awake when he got back to the dorm, sitting propped against the head board with at least four fluffy white pillows behind his head.

“Black, two sugars” John handed him a steaming mug and a placed a plate of chocolate biscuits on the covers in front of him, taking one for himself first.

“How did you know that?” Sherlock said between bites of biscuit and sips of coffee.

“You’re not the only one who observes”

“Clearly”

“So” John began “Christmas, two whole weeks of too much food and snow, playing wizard chess and exploding snap with Professor McGonagall”

“Really?”

“Yeah, she’s a demon, I lost two Galleons to her last year”

“What else?” Sherlock asked, eyes lighting up like an excited child as John crawled slowly up the bed towards him.

“Presents, mulled wine, pinching fire whiskey from the teacher’s lounge and getting so pissed we forget our own names”

“Sounds like fun”

“And sex…. definitely lots more of that….and then you can tell me all about that murder you solved….”

“And?” Sherlock prompted, putting his coffee cup down beside the bed and pulling John onto his lap. He bent his head down… lips almost touching.

“And lots more flying lessons of course”


	10. The Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock runs away in the middle of a snowstorm and John will tear his world apart to get him back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is based on my most favourite Christmas episode from cult 1990's Teen Drama 'My So-Called Life' starring Claire Danes and Jared Leto. (Episode 15 - So-Called Angels).  
> This show is an absolute must-watch, and at the time blew every other teen drama out of the water, still does in my opinion.  
> Why the hell it was cancelled after only one season is anyone's guess when you look at some of the utter pish out there.
> 
> Anyway, I've adapted the story for Sherlock and John - except Part One, that's all me - so apologies in advance (you'll understand when you read it).

**PART ONE**

 

“Don’t be too long John, I want you back by four”

“Okay mum, we’ll just be down at the park” John called, as he took the long red lead down from the hook by the back door. He bent down, fumbling to clip it to the matching red collar of an extremely enthusiastic Golden Labrador.

“Keep still girl” he spluttered as four doggy feet skittered and skidded against the hard tiled floor and a rough wet tongue licked a slobbery trail all over his forearms. At least there was someone who was always pleased to see him no matter what.

These Sunday afternoons were his favourite time, spending long lazy hours in the park, tossing sticks and playing fetch, when he could forget that they had no money to decorate his new room and that all his friends were sixty miles away living a life that John Watson was no longer a part of.

The late summer air felt warm against his skin as he walked down the long row of terraced houses, right arm extended as the dog pulled and tugged in her eagerness to reach their destination, to run, to jump, to play, tail wagging constantly. John fished around in his pocket for the battered old tennis ball he always brought, and tossed it once, twice in his hand as they crossed the street and pushed through the wrought iron gate leading into the park.

There didn’t appear to be many dogs around today so he unclipped the leash and then drew his arm back and threw the old ball with as much strength as he could put behind it. Dawn shot off, in hot pursuit while John ambled slowly along behind her, keeping the rapidly retreating golden flash in sight.

Every single Sunday they played the same game, and every single time, within minutes, a slobbery soggy yellow ball would drop into his lap as he lay back on the grass and stared up into the wide blue sky. He settled back and folded his arms behind his head.

Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen.

Where the hell had she got to? He raised his head again. There she was, fifty yards off bouncing around with another dog, a bright red Irish Setter. John sighed and got up, best to go fetch her now before she became a bloody nuisance, not everyone appreciated an addition to their Sunday afternoon dog walk and Dawn could be annoyingly persistent.

He heard a sharp whistle from a figure sitting on the grass nearby and watched as both dogs bounded over, jumping all over and around a small skinny boy. Seriously Dawn had no fucking manners, a proper little attention-seeking doggy chav.

John braced himself as he jogged over to them, “Sorry about my dog, I can’t seem to get her to stop jumping up”

A pair of ice blue eyes stared up at him from his position, flat on his back on the grass.

“Why ever would you want to stop her? Total obedience is rather overrated, and shouldn’t they be allowed to enjoy themselves too?”

“Er, I guess so” John flopped down beside him and was immediately beset by wagging tails and hot, smelly dog breath as the two new playmates discovered another human to thoroughly irritate.

The boy stuck out his right hand.

“What _are_ you doing?” John stifled a giggle, because really the boy could not have been any older than eleven or twelve and surely he couldn’t seriously think it was normal for two kids to shake hands? The bubble of mirth soon drifted away as he caught the look of hurt and embarrassment on the other boys face and lurching sideways he gripped the warm dry palm and pumped their joined hands up and down.

“Pleased to meet you, I’m John” the boy smiled and then laughed, soft and melodious. It made his eyes sparkle and gave him cute little dimples in each of his cheeks.

“ I’m Sherlock, and the ill-mannered dog over there is Redbeard and we were supposed to be at the other side of the park by now, until we were side tracked by this beautiful girl” he paused to scratch behind Dawn’s ears, which earned him a sticky, doggy kiss on the nose.

“She’s called Dawn, my mum said it’s cause she’s the same colour as the early morning sun” John blushed, because he hadn’t really meant to tell him that and when you put it like that, out loud it did sound a bit ridiculous.

Sherlock just nodded. “He’s just red, and the hair under his chin looks a bit like a beard, what you said sounded much better….do you want to be friends?”

No-one had ever just come out and asked him like that and when you added it together with the hand-shaking thing and the posh, plummy voice, Sherlock struck him as a very odd kid, and the way he was dressed too – like he’d just been to a wedding or some sort of posh do, trousers, not jeans and a shirt with the sleeves carefully folded back to just above the elbows. John glanced down at his frayed jeans and dirty, scuffed trainers and back up to Sherlock’s open, hopeful face and felt something like determined pride swelling in his chest. His first new friend at the new house, maybe they could bike to school together and have sleepovers and stuff.

“Yeah…I’d like that”

An harassed looking woman, mid-fifties, in a long floral frock came bustling along the path that stretched around the perimeter of the duck pond, “Oh thank goodness, I wondered where on earth you had got to…do come along now Sherlock”

“Your mum?” John asked, knowing how totally humiliating this was as Sherlock turned beet red and stood up, brushing dry grass off his arse.

“No, Nanny” he mumbled, not meeting John’s eye as he clipped an expensive brown leather lead to Redbeard and hovered awkwardly, torn between obeying the call and staying here with his new friend.

John stirred “I have to be getting back too, but I’ll be here same time next week if you want to hang out again….”

“You might…or you might not” he shrugged, his snub little nose in the air as he turned, but not quite fast enough that John didn’t catch the delighted smile the he couldn’t quite conceal.

“Yeah right…later Sherlock”, he smiled and waved as the boy bent down to give Dawn a final pat on the head before he turned to walk back down the path.

And so it continued. Every Sunday they met in the park, sometimes just sitting on the grass and talking about nothing in particular, or throwing sticks for the two dogs. It had soon become clear on the first day of high school that Sherlock would not be joining him there, but that didn’t matter, because he preferred to keep this as something _other_ , something special, just between the two of them.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” John asked him one afternoon as they destroyed the neat piles of fallen leaves that had been gathered by the park –keeper, jumping and laughing, throwing huge handfuls at each other.

“A pirate” Sherlock shouted, picking up two long sticks and throwing one to John “Now walk the plank you lily-livered land lubber” he said, in his best Long John Silver voice while poking John in the stomach.

“Never, you scurvy cur” John swiped at Sherlock with his stick, and they parried back and forth, the wood clacking together, until Sherlock caught John off guard, and his stick went sailing in wide arc. It bounced off a tree-trunk and disappeared into a spiky bramble bush.

“Bollock’s, you win Sherlock”

He folded his jacket up in a bundle and gingerly sat down. It would be a while before the cold registered because, right now they were both sweating buckets.

“What about you then John?”

“Oh, a doctor I think, if I do well at school, or maybe a soldier, I haven’t made my mind up but I’m only thirteen so there’s loads of time yet….bit boring, your idea is so much cooler”.

The weeks turned to months and still every Sunday they met up, except the long summer break which Sherlock would spend with his grandparents in France, only returning for the last weekend before school began. Sherlock never talked about his other friends, or school (John knew it was the posh private day school on Lancaster road), or even his family, but encouraged John to spill every detail of his life, stopping him from time to time to make ‘deductions’ he called them, about classmates and his mum and Harry which usually turned out to be spookily accurate, like magic or something.

“Yer a wizard Harry” John said one afternoon in his best Hagrid impersonation, and Sherlock just frowned at him and said “John, what _on earth_ are you talking about?”.

The week after school started John and Dawn headed eagerly for the park, waiting by ‘their’ tree, a knarled old oak to the west of the duck pond. They waited for three solid hours, until well past four, even knowing his mum would be furious, because Sunday night was bingo night with Aunty Dot and she liked to get the tea on early so she could get ready before Antique’s Roadshow. At a quarter to five they gave up and went home.

Eight weeks passed by just the same, no Redbeard and no Sherlock and the world grew just that bit greyer every day. Sunday afternoons were no longer a source of eager anticipation, instead, John would spend the whole morning with a twisting knot of anxiety in his stomach and no appetite, pushing his roast dinner absentmindedly around on his plate. By December he had given up all hope. Maybe Sherlock had moved away, or changed school’s or just didn’t want to be his friend anymore, whatever the reason John felt like shit and it hurt, more than he believed that it should for some kid he only ever saw for a couple of hours, once a week on a Sunday. Dawn was disappointed too, looking at him hopefully every single time with eyes that were clearly saying ‘Where’s my Redbeard? Where’s your Sherlock?”

John stared out of his bedroom window, the weather was awful today, wind howling like a banshee, lifting the tiles on the roof, and rain pissing down in fat heavy drops. “Not today girl” he said, absently stroking the top of Dawn’s head. It was just as well, because he didn’t actually enjoy the park if Sherlock wasn’t going to be there. He switched on his tv and settled back against the headboard of his bed with a can of Coke and half a bag of salted popcorn left over from the night before, determined to ignore the Maths assignment that was due in tomorrow.

A knock at the door. John ignored that too.

“John, could you get that, I’m on the phone” Mum shouted up the stairs.

“Where’s Harry?”

“Sleepover, not back yet…just do as you’re told John”.

He grouched and grumbled down the stairs, practising his ‘fuck off’ face for whoever had dared to interrupt his epic Sunday sulk. He undid the latch and angrily wrenched open the door.

“Jesus Christ Sherlock”

Sherlock stood on the front doorstep, soaked through to the bone in his grey wool coat and shuddering violently against the cold, his face a picture of utter pain and misery as he clutched a brown leather collar to his skinny little chest.

“I’m sorry John”

John grabbed his arm and dragged him inside the house, where he dripped forlornly on the hall carpet, not even registering that Sherlock had never, in two years, been to his house before.

“Oh Sherlock….come on”

John didn’t ask and Sherlock didn’t tell, he just followed along wordlessly, allowing John to shepherd him through the house and up the stairs. John pushed him gently into the bathroom and awkwardly began to fumble with his friends’ saturated clothes, stripping them off and leaving them in a soggy pile on the floor. John darted back into his bedroom and picked and old blue t-shirt and a pair of tracksuit bottoms from his dresser drawer, passing them to him through the half-closed bathroom door. Sherlock hovered uncertainly in the doorway of John’s bedroom dressed in a top that swamped his skinny frame and pants that showed three inches of bare ankle.

“Come here” John beckoned him over. Sherlock lurched forward like a puppet with the strings cut, and pushed him back until his knees hit the mattress. John sat down heavily and shuffled back, settling himself against the headboard again with a stack of pillows to cushion his head. Sherlock climbed up beside him and curled around the side of his body like a cat, burrowing his face into John’s wool clad stomach to hide his red-rimmed eyes.

They sat like that for hours, until the light faded and the rain finally stopped, the material of John’s jumper damp against his skin and stretched beyond repair from Sherlock’s iron grip. John stroked the curls back from his face as Sherlock fell into a fitfull doze, breath hitching just like Harry’s used to, when she was a baby and cried herself to sleep after some massive tantrum.

“Promise _you_ won’t ever leave me John"

He jumped slightly at the sound of Sherlock’s voice, so raw and husky with emotion, and knew right then that he would never refuse him anything, not now, not ever.

“I promise Sherlock”.

 

**THREE YEARS LATER**

 

“Will you just leave me _the fuck alone_ John!”

Sherlock stomped away from him down the corridor, hood pulled up over his head in an attempt to disguise the cigarette that dangled between his lips. John pushed against the flow of people, every single one of whom, annoyingly, were heading in the opposite direction.

It was fucking annoying how that skinny twat just sidled right through them.

“You’re the one that turned up here…I didn’t ask you to come, so will you for god’s sake just tell me what’s wrong?” he was panting slightly with the effort it had taken to catch up and trying to ignore the curious glances and knowing smirks heading in his direction.

Seriously, he might as well have put a neon sign above his head that said ‘John Watson is shagging this bloke’. Not that he was, because he wasn’t, it was just a day in the life of a typical high school rumour mill, and to an onlooker this did look suspiciously like some sort of lover’s tiff, especially since Sherlock didn’t even go here.

The bell rang and the corridor swiftly emptied out, so he pushed Sherlock into the nearest boy’s bathroom and pulled his bloody annoying chavvy hood down. The posh young boy in trousers and designer shirts had disappeared a long time ago.

“Jesus Christ…who was it this time?” because really, this was nothing new and told John everything he needed to know about why Sherlock was currently neither in uniform nor at school.

Sherlock sniffed and flinched away from John’s probing fingers, huffing in irritation as John grasped his chin anyway and tilted his face from side to side, taking in the full technicolour horror of a bust lip and black eye. This was nothing new either. Nearly every week after Redbeard, since they were thirteen years old, Sherlock had turned up on John’s doorstep unannounced with some newly acquired injury and they had long ago given up the pretence that he acquired them by accident. John would just usher him in and take him upstairs to his room where Sherlock would perch on the edge of the bed while John played doctor with the contents of the bathroom medicine cabinet, cleaning and swabbing and patching him up.

Then Sherlock liked to curl around him while they watched crap movies, and sometimes they would both fall asleep like that. He had never actually turned up in the middle of a school day before.

“I’ll take you home”

“No!”

“What the fuck Sherlock, I can’t patch you up here, just give me a minute and I’ll get my stuff”

“Is your mother home?”

“It’s Tuesday, so yeah, probably”

“Then no”

“Oh for god’s sake Sherlock!”

In all the time they had been friends, Sherlock and his mother had never gotten along. She thought he was strange and unnerving, probably because Sherlock had absolutely no qualms in pointing out the various faults and bad habits of whoever her current boyfriend was and pointed out quite loudly, in front of the neighbours , that for a woman of her height and weight she consumed way over the average recommended units per week of alcohol.

Later, his mother found other more unpalatable excuses not to have him round, that went way beyond ‘I don’t like him’, straying into such territory as ‘he’s not like us, too posh, rude little arsehole, weird compared to your other friends’ to the absolute clincher ‘I don’t want him upstairs in your room John’.

Yeah, right, you would have to be a brain-dead idiot not to know what that was about. So Sherlock was gay, so fucking what. It obviously didn’t matter to her that the kid was getting the shit kicked out of him at school week-in, week-out.

John made it back from the lockers in less than two minutes, but it still wasn’t fast enough. The bathroom was empty, Sherlock had already bolted and gone.

God, what a bloody annoying little tosser, John thought as he thumped his hand against the wall in frustration.

“Did you see a tall kid, hood up, cigarette in his mouth…can only have been a couple of minutes ago?” he called to a scruffy looking kid who looked vaguely familiar, Bobby or Ben or something similar carrying a battered old guitar slung over one shoulder.

“It’s Billy” the boy supplied, “ And if you mean Sherlock, yeah I saw him, don’t worry I can keep an eye on him if you want”

“How do you know him?” It wasn’t exactly comforting that some boy he had never spoken to before seemed aware that Sherlock, his best friend, his everything, needed looking out for.

“He hangs round with us from time to time…you know…when he needs something, when he’s had enough”

Shit, John did know. It was one of the only things he and Sherlock had almost come to blows themselves over – Sherlock’s unsavoury recreational drugs habit, something which he had thought was now under control. Apparently not.

He ran his hands down over his face in frustration but when he looked up to ask where this meeting place was, something he couldn’t bare to believe he didn’t already know, Billy had already gone.

~*~

“No John, you’re staying in tonight to watch your sister… presents don’t buy themselves and I’m back at work again tomorrow”

“Can’t you just go at the weekend?”

“No, it’ll be far too busy on the weekend before Christmas…Malcolm’s here to pick me up…sorry love” she gave him a half-hearted peck on the cheek as she rushed out the door in a cloud of hairspray and perfume.

Christmas shopping my arse, he thought, more like Christmas shagging after a cheap bottle of wine at Malcom’s sad bachelor pad. He sighed, knowing it could be a hell of a lot worse, at least this one had a job and a car, and bonus, he wasn’t another homophobic arsehole, even siding with John after the last time he and mum had had ‘the talk’ about Sherlock staying over in his room.

John’s fingers twitched compulsively, itching to punch out another text asking where on earth the stupid git was, but knowing after number forty seven, he was definitely not going to get an answer.

“It’s okay, I won’t tell mum if you want to sneak out and look for him” Harry peered at him over the top of the latest copy of Kerrang, with eyes made wide by copious amounts of black kohl eyeliner.

He hesitated. It was tempting, but he didn’t have any idea where to look and for all he knew, Sherlock could just be having an epic sulk in his room at home. That was also a weekly occurrence. Maybe it would be better to risk the wrath of Sherlock and check in first with Mycroft, his older brother. He was a Phd student at Cambridge and should be home for the Christmas break by now.

“John…look John, I think that’s Sherlock”

Harry pointed excitedly at a tall, thin figure hovering in the shadows behind the tree in the back garden. Dawn lay calmly in her basket, her tail thumping excitedly against the kitchen floor. If it was stranger she would have been barking and jumping around, not waiting for her favourite person in the world to come inside and give her a belly rub.

He had his long grey coat on now, on top of the hoody and jeans, which meant that at some point he had gone home and then left again. The bruises looked even worse under the harsh fluorescent lights as John opened the back door and ushered him into the kitchen.

“It’s okay, she’s not here, so come in” John grabbed his arm and pulled him over the threshold. His coat was damp and freezing, flecked with fat flakes of newly fallen snow. Sherlock’s eyes skittered around the room nervously and John was drawn closer, torn between hugging him so tightly he couldn’t breathe and checking on his pulse rate and pupil dilation.

“Do you want something to eat Sherlock? Mum’s made enough casserole to feed an army and there’s loads left”, Harry blurted out before John had the chance to shout at him about buggering off without telling him where the hell he was going. Sherlock nodded and Harry set a bowl on the breakfast bar in front of him, ladling in a generous amount of the hot filling stew. John’s heart sank. It was a measure of how bad things must be that Sherlock attacked the bowl like a ravenous wolf, he was never hungry and always shrugged off John’s attempts to get him to eat more, unless it was a case of the munchies of course.

Oh god, he had to ask.

“Are you high Sherlock?”

“Fuck off John”

“Is that a no?”

“It’s a mind your own business”

“For god’s sake Sherlock, _you are_ my business” he raised his voice to an angry hiss, banging his fist on the counter and making Sherlock’s dish rattle, “You’re pushing me away, but yet you’re still coming round here, just tell me what’s wrong and let me help”

They both turned around at the sound of a key scraping in the front door.

“You’ll never believe this, I only went and forgot my purse” his mother burst back in with Malcolm, pulling up sharply at the sight of Sherlock sitting at the table and eating food in her kitchen. “Ah, Sherlock…Hello dear, isn’t it a bit late for you to be coming round?” she said in a faux-cheerful voice, “John, can a have a word in the living room…now?” she pursed her lips as she motioned him and Harry out of the room. “Harry, could you go to your room now?” she ignored the very vocal protests from his sister and closed the kitchen door, screening them all from Sherlock’s view. “What on earth is he doing here at this time of night John?”

“Open your eyes…can’t you see he’s been hurt mum, or don’t you give a damn about him?”

“Steady on, show your mother a little respect John”

“With _respect_ Malcolm, this has fuck all to do with you, and this wouldn’t even be up for discussion if it was Bill or Mike Stamford….tell me why is that mum?”

He mother shifted uncomfortably and glanced nervously at Malcolm, hoping he at least would back her up.

“We should leave this for his parents to deal with… whatever it is that’s wrong, it’s not our place John”

“Bollocks, the fact that he’s openly gay makes you uncomfortable…what…do you worry he has his hand in my pants every time we’re left alone?”

“John! For goodness sake” his mother blustered, her obvious embarrassment at his accusation telling him all he needed to know.

“What harm would it do Angela, to let the lad stay the night, just ring his parents and tell them I’ll drop him off first thing in the morning, how does that sound?” John smiled gratefully at Malcolm, at least one adult in the house was talking some sense.

“I’m sorry Malcolm” he mother interrupted, “letting the boy stay here is not the answer”

John felt the rising tide of anger, bubbling within his chest. How dare she talk about Sherlock like that, address him as ‘that boy’ when they had been in each other’s pockets for the last five years.

“Then what is the answer mum?” he shouted, “Will you tell me that?"

“Oh for god’s sake son, grow up” he mother yelled back, “You can’t be responsible for the whole world”

“I’m not trying to be, can’t you see that?.....But… why can’t you understand how much I care about Sherlock?”

The back door closed with a slam which made them both jump. John didn’t need to go back to the kitchen to see what had happened, they hadn’t exactly been trying to keep their voices down. He remembered too late that Sherlock hated hearing arguments, another thing that had made him curl up against John and hide his face in the folds of his jumpers. It was the noise, he had said, it jarred against his ears and made his head feel all ‘swirly and weird’.

His phone vibrated once against his hip.

_Don’t worry, I’m fine – taking a cab home. Sorry – SH_

~*~

Sherlock flipped his collar up against the bitter, biting wind, eyes screwed almost shut to keep out the icy snowflakes as he directed his footsteps back towards the main street in town. Home was not an option tonight. ‘That’s it’ his father had said ‘I won’t have you upsetting your mother anymore, how dare you bring drugs into this house, and the fighting Sherlock…if this is the lifestyle you choose after all we have given you then…’ He hadn’t waited to hear the end of that sentence, that was enough. But he had to see John, like a compulsion, since the day they had met John had been his anchor, his safe place, but somehow he just couldn’t bring himself to admit to him what a mess he had made of everything. And it was getting too hard to be around him when all he wanted to do was lie on top of him and kiss him and do various other things if John would let him.

It was quite ironic really, that the only secret between them was that Sherlock had fallen totally and irrevocably, in love with him. But John, John was perfect and deserved so much more than Sherlock could give him right now.

He sat on a bench in front of an all-night Tesco and shoved his hands between his legs to keep them warm, while he tried to think of a place where he could go and crash for the night. Someone pulled into the carpark beside him and he automatically put his head down, his heart slamming hard against his chest as the driver’s side window wound down.

“Hey, It’s Sherlock, right? John Watson’s mate?”

He looked up at the sound of a young, gruff voice. Graham, or Greg or something, wasn’t it? He was in his final year at John’s school, a football player, had aspirations to join the police force (would be a reasonably intelligent addition – should do well), but not averse to bending the rules or turning a blind eye from time to time. Sherlock lifted his chin and gave Greg a brief nod of affirmation. Not a rapist or a serial killer, then.

“You need a lift somewhere? Only, you’ll look like frosty the snowman soon if you don’t get the hell out of this blizzard”

Sherlock jumped down off the bench and headed round the car to the passenger side door, climbing gratefully into the warm, snug interior breathing in the smell of petrol and old leather. Greg looked at him thoughtfully, his budding policeman’s eye missed nothing as it took in the barely concealed shadow and the dark, crusted cut on his mouth.

“Where to then, Sherlock?”

He shrugged.

“You need somewhere to stay for the night? I know a place, I’ll take you there if you like, but it’s no five star accommodation”

“That’s fine” he managed, “just as long as I’ll still be alive by morning”

“That bad huh? You know, my Dad used to hit me sometimes, when he was tired, or pissed or just plain couldn’t stand the sight of me or my little brother”

“Really? What did you do?”

“Nothing”, Greg laughed hollowly, “well, when I say nothing…the last time was a couple of years ago, but I threw a chair at him and broke his jaw…he’s too scared to come near me now”

“Fuck…that’s awful…but it’s not my Dad…well he’s not the one who did this, anyway” he brushed his fingertips nervously over the injured side of his face, “I just can’t face going home tonight…need some space”

“No probs, there’s an empty warehouse on Sackville Street, down by the docks, loads of people, mostly kids, stay there when the weather is shit like tonight, I’ve stayed there myself a few times. It’s dry at least, still not very fucking warm though”

“It’ll do…thanks”

Greg nodded and turned on the engine and the battered old car sprung to life. He paused and turned to look at Sherlock again. “Look kid, I know it’s none of my business…but I thought you sort of had…a thing…with John, couldn’t he help you out?”

“You’re right, it is none of your business” was the only response he got as Sherlock turned his head away to look out of the window, his own ghostly face stared back at him as he brushed angrily at one hot, stray tear that could’ve been mistaken for a bead of condensation running down the glass, at least he hoped that was what Greg thought.

~*~

John struggled through school the next day, his mind elsewhere, going over that ridiculous argument with his mother in his head, the one that had made Sherlock run away again. There had been no more word last night, and it would only be the catalyst for another big blow-up if Sherlock felt John was coddling him. You always had to tread so carefully with him. He would cling to John like a limpet sometimes, covering him like a human blanket on the bed, while at other times he was like a feral cat, spitting and snarling if you took one false step into his closely guarded territory.

It was a relief to hear the final bell at half past three. It didn’t matter if Sherlock lashed out, John just needed to see him and make sure that he was alright, somewhere safe, in his own home hopefully, it was hard to say for sure when the idiot refused to answer his phone. Any more texts and he could be officially classed as a stalker.

John hung around in the corridor, waiting for his next door neighbour, Mike. He was coming over for tea tonight because his mum and dad were off visiting some random relative and Mike hadn’t wanted to go with them. Trust him to be late though, when John was desperate to get home.

The door to the music room stood open and the soft melodic thrumming of guitar music filled the air. That kid, Billy, maybe he had some idea where Sherlock had gone last night. He walked towards the open door, praying he would see the scruffy young boy sitting there. It was. The music was beautiful and haunting, a contrast to his hard-edged appearance, fingers drifting lovingly over the strings, the melodies blending seamlessly together. He was singing too, soft and low, untrained but perfect and pure, the type of sound that raises the hairs on the back of your neck and makes your eyes fill up for no apparent reason. John waited patiently for him to finish, not wanting to interrupt.

“That was amazing Billy”

“Nah, just something I’ve been playing around with, it’s not finished yet”

“Erm, I was wondering…”

“Your friend Sherlock”

“Yeah, have you seen him? I mean, last night that is, I don’t know if he got home okay and I’m a bit worried to be honest” he shifted nervously from foot to foot. Billy jumped down from the table and opened his battered old guitar case, laying the instrument inside with infinite care, he lifted his head to look at John with undisguised curiosity, as if gauging whether he could trust him. His shoulders relaxed as he stood up, ready to leave.

“He’s fine, … you don’t have to worry, I’ve got his back” he said with a smile as he brushed past John and made his way out into the crowded corridor.

“But wait” John turned to go after him “You never actually told me where…….he was” his voice trailed off uncertainly, looking left and right, searching for the distinctive guitar case and shabby clothes in amongst the smart school uniforms. He huffed in frustration and whirled around, slamming straight into the solid form of Greg Lestrade.

“Whoa there John…you look strung out there mate, has it got anything to do with Sherlock by any chance?”

“What? How did you….have you seen him?”

“Yep, took him to a place I know of, last night. I offered to take him home, but he wasn’t having any of it”

God knows what his face was doing at that moment but Greg pulled him over to the side of the corridor and bent closer, brow furrowed with genuine concern.

“Look, I got the impression you two had had words last night, I did ask why he didn’t just call you, but he seems like a stubborn little shit”

John snorted in agreement and Greg cracked a grin “I can take you there now if you like, so you can see for yourself”.

John was sitting in Greg’s car, a mile away, heading out of the town towards the dock’s before he remembered that Mike would probably be waiting for him by now. He hoped he had the common sense to just walk to John’s house on his own, because this was far more important.

With the onset of nightfall the inside of the warehouse was already impenetrably dark, and the only light sources came from candles and the odd improvised fire set in old battered metal containers. Groups of people, mostly kids, stood huddled around the golden flames for warmth, wrapped in every layer of clothing that they owned. John felt so conspicuous in his neat school uniform and warm padded parks with the fur-lined hood. It felt like he was mocking them just by being here. But Sherlock, he was here somewhere too and he wouldn’t leave until he had at least spoken to him, even if it was just to hear Sherlock telling him to fuck off again.

“He could be anywhere in here”, Greg said, “There are loads of little rooms upstairs where people can crash out, sleep”

“Spill it Greg, what else”

“Some people…not as many as you seem to think, take drugs”

John didn’t stay to listen to another damn word he just headed blindly towards the nearest set of stairs, the only destination he had in mind, was up, as fast as humanly possible. The rooms on the first floor revealed nothing, three were empty and the others were occupied by much older kids who glared at John accusingly. He didn’t hang around to ask if they had seen a tall, pale, skinny kid with a smart mouth and a bad attitude. The soft familiar strains of Billy’s melodic music drifted down from the floor above, so he crept up the stairs, this time, gut instinct telling him that he was finally on the right track.

The only light in the small dingy space came from a yellowing candle set on an old, cracked china plate. Sherlock was curled on an old sagging mattress, back to the open door with a fluffy wool jumper folded as a makeshift pillow shoved beneath his head. One of John’s, though god knows when he had nicked that one, it was one his favourites and he hadn’t even missed it, although Sherlock had told him on more than one occasion that it made him look like a furry dwarf. The lying little bastard.

“For god’s sake John I know that’s you standing there, the way you breathe is so bloody annoying”

“Nice to see you too Sherlock” Sherlock flipped over on the mattress and in one smooth movement stood up, using his extra height to full advantage, he loomed over John and pressed him back into the cold plaster wall.

“Go home John, you can’t be here, I don’t want you here, because let’s face it, you don’t belong”

“And neither do you, you stupid bloody idiot” John pressed a hand to his chest and pushed back, “Why can’t you just go home Sherlock?”

“I can’t talk about this, not with you anyway, so if you really want to help you can leave. Me. Alone” he punctuated the last three words with a deliberate stab to the chest with a bony forefinger.

“Not going to happen mate, we’ve never hidden a thing from each other in the five years we’ve been friends and I’m not about to start now”.

Sherlock actually laughed, loud and slightly hysterically, “Shit John, I always told you your poker face was fucking awful”.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come back when you’ve worked it out”.

Sherlock waved him away with a flick of the wrist and flopped back down on the dirty mattress, facing away from him. Sulking again, angry at John for no reason at all that he could see.

“If you’re not back by morning, I’m phoning your brother” he said as a childish last resort. Sherlock merely grunted in response.

The drive back was silent and tense. Greg just asked “No luck then?” and the only thing he could think of to say was “He’ll come back when he’s ready, not before, but thanks for taking me over anyway”

“Any time John”

And if he thought things couldn’t get worse then he was wrong, his mother on the attack as soon as he walked in through the back door.

“Why the hell didn’t you phone to say you were going to be late back, poor Mike turned up on his own, that’s so ill-mannered John”

“I’m sorry okay? Can we not do this mum? I’m back now” he shucked off his wet coat and walked towards the hallway to hang it up, Sherlock still occupying all the available space in his mind.

“Well go through and keep Mike company, god knows your sister is precious little help in that department, I think she’s surgically attached to that damn phone” she bustled back into the kitchen not realising how much it pissed him off that Mike was invited for dinner when she had been so rude and dismissive of Sherlock last night. But that wasn’t Mike’s fault, and he was John’s friend too. He plastered on his best fake smile as he walked into the living room.

“Hey there Mike”

“Christ you look rough John”

“Yeah, well I didn’t get much sleep last night”, or any in fact, he couldn’t quite muster the energy to add.

“Oh right, Harry told me Sherlock’s done a runner again”

“I found him”

“Where?”

“This warehouse by the dock’s, Sackville Street, there’s loads of kids there Mike, you should have seen them, it was like something out of Charles Dicken’s”.

Mike just goggled at him in disbelief. He knew exactly how he felt, it was shameful not to even realise how lucky they were, just to be sitting here, where but for a simple twist of fate they might very well be there.

~*~

“Did you hear that Malcolm?” Angela Watson stood with her ear almost pressed against the kitchen wall, “That’s where he’s been, in some abandoned old warehouse”.

“Calm down, John’s a good kid, don’t worry so much”.

“Don’t worry? Have you any idea what could’ve happened to him in a place like that?”.

“He must have been looking for his friend, Sherlock wasn’t it?”

“Oh god Malcolm, did we do the right thing, am I a terrible person?”

“No Ange, you’re not, what you said last night made sense, but John may have had a point”.

“What do you mean?”

“You do treat Sherlock differently from his other friends, I mean look at tonight…Mike”.

“Oh god I am terrible person aren’t I? It’s just…he’s so different…so…”

“Gay?”

“Malcolm!”

“Just think about it Ange, what if it was Harry or John?”

Sherlock was someone’s child and she had essentially thrown him to the wolves. She had done the wrong thing by him and if anything happened to that boy she knew she would never be able to forgive herself.

“Get your coat Malcolm, you’re taking me to the police station…now”.

~*~

The officer behind the front desk looked a weird combination of bored and harassed, resigned to the utter stupidity of these prime examples of humanity who were currently cluttering up his waiting room.

Angela hovered uncertainly. How exactly did you report something like this, they knew where he was, so would it be classed as a missing person? She opted for something bland and neutral.

“I would like to report a ‘situation’” she cleared her throat, nervously and looked at the desk sergeant with an air of innocent expectation.

He sighed. This was going to be a bloody long night.

“ A boy, a friend of my son has been sleeping in an abandoned warehouse”.

“And can you tell me where that is?”

“By the dock’s I think, Sackwell something…”

“Sackville Road…yes, we know about that place, I take it that it’s in need of another clear out”.

It wasn’t a question, as he was muttering more to himself than to anyone else, inwardly groaning at the volume of complicated paperwork a police raid on an industrial premises would generate.

“So what happens now?” Angela asked, clearly not satisfied that they had any intention of actually following through and doing their damn job. But she seemed like a nice lady, so he decided to switch on the kindness and compassion, just this once.

“Well that depends you see…is he a runaway or a throwaway?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Obviously he had offended her naïve middle-class sensibilities. He tried again.

“Did he leave of his own accord, or was he…pushed out?”

“Oh god, what parent would do that?”

He gestured to the missing person poster’s adorning the bulletin board, “More than you would ever believe…”

“It’s Mrs Watson” she stared in disbelief. So many faces, good kids, normal kids from normal families, just like Sherlock and John.

He nodded. “You have a son, you said?”

“Yes, his name is John”.

“Well you just keep him close Mrs Watson, he’s lucky to have you”.

The old policeman sighed. Time to call in the clean-up squad.

~*~

John heard the front door bang as his mother and Malcolm returned for wherever they had disappeared to an hour ago. He had already served up tea for himself, Harry and Mike, otherwise it would have been ruined. It took one look at his mother’s face when she walked into the kitchen to work out where it was she had been to. He prayed that he was wrong.

“What the hell have you done?”

“Don’t talk to me in that tone John”

“Fuck that, you’ve been to the police station haven’t you?” her lack of protest was an answer in itself and John’s heart sank. Sherlock would never trust him again. He stormed down the hall and pulled on his parka and a thick, knitted scarf.

“You can’t go back to that place John “.

“Are you really so blind? Why can’t you see that that could just as easily be me?”

“No John, how could you say that, you’re not like that”.

“ Like what? Not _gay_ like Sherlock? Well I am, and I love him…. it’s the truth and you know it mum”.

He wrenched the door open and headed out into the freezing cold night. This was what Sherlock had wanted him to work out, to finally realise. This was why he was tormented at school, skiving off and fighting, both with other kids and hi own parents. Stupid, _stupid_. Why the hell had he been carrying this all around inside him, waiting for John to figure it out alone. Sherlock must have known all along how John really felt before he had even realised it himself.

He thumbed through his contacts for Greg Lestrade’s number, no time to worry about whether he was doing the right thing, “It’s John, any chance of a lift mate?”

When they got to the warehouse the entire place was empty and dark, no fires, no candles and definitely no people. Even most of the mattresses and pillows had gone. There had either been a tip-off or the police had gone through afterwards and cleared everything out, as a signal not to bother coming back again. But he had to go and check the rooms on the upper floor, feet turning automatically towards the old stairwell, thinking only of Sherlock.

A flashlight almost blinded him as it swept over his face from the top of the stairs.

“Just hold it there pal, you’re coming with us”.

~*~

“I have to go after him Malcolm”.

“What’s wrong now Angela, I go to the bathroom and come down to this?, I think half the street heard you love”.

“I’ve had the most awful row with John, just stay here with Harry, I think I know where he’s gone…please Malcolm”.

This had all turned into such a godawful mess. Her own son and he didn’t feel he could come to her, confide in her anymore. It was her own stupid fault, the way she had treated Sherlock, no the wonder John had kept this part of himself hidden for so long.

The early evening snowfall had quickly turned to slippery ice with coated the roads and pathways, making them truly treacherous. It was so damn cold, she thought, turning the heater up to full as she reduced her speed and turned the corner, left, towards town. You could die of exposure on a night like this, it happened every winter, there was always some local news story tucked away on one of the back pages, people walking home from nights out, sitting down for a rest and never getting up. She thought of Sherlock’s skinny frame, not enough fat there to provide any sort of insulation, the cold would cut through that boy like a knife through butter.

John had left on foot so he couldn’t have gone too far, she thought, pulling into a space on the highstreet, the paths still busy with late-night Christmas shoppers. She searched the crowds eagerly, looking for his thick green parka, the implications of what could happen if she didn’t find them both tonight weighing heavily on her mind. A skinny boy with a guitar almost collided with her as she turned the corner, moving off the main street, back towards the police station.

A half-remembered conversation floated through her mind about John hearing some kid playing the most amazing song, and his face looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t quite place where she had seen him before, a school concert seemed the most likely place. He glanced back over his shoulder once, before heading in the direction of All Saints church. With nothing else to go on it was worth a try, so she quickened her pace and followed.

“Hey there!...Excuse me, can a talk to you for just a minute?”

Twenty yards ahead the boy stopped, just beside the gate which led up to the pretty little church.

“You have questions?” he looked at her with wide, compassionate eyes, her distress now palpable, a visible entity like white puffs of freezing breath.

“Do you live out here, on the streets, in the cold?”

The boy sighed “ I had a mother once, father too, a nice house, clean clothes, food on the table, all of that just like your son, but all it takes is the toss of a dice and…”

“There but for the grace of God go I” Angela finished, her breath catching in her throat. She wasn’t a religious woman, but understood the lesson very well and John had understood it better still, this boy could be John and John could be him.

“Go ahead, ask me” the boy continued, drawing a small woollen hat from his pocket and jamming it down over his head.

“Why did you leave?”

“A row, with my parents, I can’t even remember what for anymore, it was just one of those fights where it doesn’t feel real….where it feels like the fight is having you…do you know what I mean?”

Oh god, yes she did, that was exactly it. She would give anything to take back those words she had said in the seconds before John had left.

“So, what else do you want to know?”

She swallowed painfully around the lump in her throat, hot tears stinging at the back of her eyelids.

“How did you die?” she choked and the tears spilled over.

“I froze”

She squeezed her eyes tight shut and prayed to a deity she so desperately wanted to believe in “Please god, help me…help me find them”.

When she opened her eyes the boy had gone.

~*~

The inside of the church was dry and warm. Sherlock had been angry at first and had tried to run, until he was cornered like a rat in a trap by three burly policemen. No-one was under arrest though, they had just had a tip-off that people were using it as a place to sleep rough when it was unsafe and under a Council Demolition Order. Forty-seven people were shepherded onto a waiting bus and transported back into town to a church-run soup kitchen. But Sherlock felt like a fraud, unlike so many of these people, he had a home to go back to and a John to look after him, to let him curl up beside him and run warm fingers through his tousled hair. The rest he could deal with, the horrible stuff at school, if only John were here.

Sherlock wandered through the building, fingers trailing over wood and brass and stone, feeling the age and history of the building, hearing all the stories whispering along the isles and soaking into the darkly polished pews.

He had an irrational urge to light a candle. For who though?

John, always John.

He walked to the front on feet which echoed much too loudly, even here he was spoiling the solitude with his clumsy, overbearing Sherlockness. So what did you do now that the candle was lit, and set in its place amongst a plethora of identical flickering flames? Sit, and think, he supposed, count your blessings his grandmother would say. He wavered uncertainly, every breath seeming to falter in is chest which felt, tight and heavy, like each inhale and exhale took concentrated effort.

The door creaked open behind him, but he didn’t look round, just felt the icy gust of outside air which made the yellow flames before him dance and stutter casting sinister shadows around the alter. A small cold hand pressed against his shoulder and he turned, an involuntary pirouette, to be swept into a tight, bone-crushing hug.

“Oh Sherlock”

Mrs Watson was squeezing out what little remained of the air in his lungs, and thoroughly soaking the shoulder of his coat. It should have been annoying, awful, unbearable, but it wasn’t any of those things, it never could be, because this was home and this was John and almost everything he could ever need or want other than having the real thing here in his arms.

Mrs Watson pulled back and stepped away with a smile, her tearful gazed focused on the door which led down to the church basement. Sherlock turned, hardly daring to hope, but there he was, with a steaming mug of tea in each hand. Typical John, he knew Sherlock would ignore the nourishing broth and bread and so had brought him a hot beverage of indeterminate origin instead.

It was peaceful. Just sitting, sipping tea and gazing at the pretty panels of stained glass.

“Come home” John sighed as he leant his ruffled blond head on Sherlock’s arm, fingers hovering uncertainly over his own then snatching up the hand not holding a mug and linking them together so hard he felt metacarpal scrape against metacarpal. Wonderful.

He could stay for the night, and his brother would come in the morning, Mrs Watson said on the drive home. That was after the lecture from a longsuffering policeman, and another from a social services busybody and only then was he allowed to leave, accompanied by a responsible adult.

He could hear low voices in the kitchen, knowing full well what they were talking about. Mrs Watson wanted to make up the spare room, or put him on a camping bed in the living room, and John was pointing out, quite fairly, that Sherlock was practically family and why did she now want to treat him like a guest.

It would take time, that was all, to adjust to the new dynamic that had always been hovering just below the surface.

John won in the end, and Sherlock lay on him like a long, bony blanket until it became both hot and uncomfortable and John unceremoniously shoved him off, smothering his indignant protests with long, deep, desperate kisses that made his head spin and his heart pound. John stripped back every layer, undressing them both with infinite patience and care, while Sherlock burned, every inch of skin aflame with want, the need to feel and touch, and be touched. And so he did, mapping John’s body, committing every glorious part to memory until the need took over, rocking into each other so gently at first, then rough and hot and frantic, like it would never be enough and as Sherlock writhed beneath him, John stifled their cries with the press of his beautiful, perfect mouth.

“Don’t ever leave me again Sherlock”

“I promise John”


End file.
